Organisational governance structures in allied health services:A decade of change

Abstract

A ten year review of developments in the organisation and management of allied health services in Australian acutecare public hospitals reveals a steady transformation away from a medically managed universal model towards morecomplex and contested models of governance. This article revisits early observations about the reorganisation of alliedhealth services and presents more recent research findings to guide managerial decision-making about restructuringthe diverse disciplines that constitute allied health. A new organisational model "integrated decentralisation" ispresented as an approach to managing allied health services which accommodates multiple stakeholder demands inthe context of New Public Management (NPM) related reforms. The focus on the institutional level is complementedby examining developments in the profile and activity of allied health at the regional, state and national levels topresent a more comprehensive picture of change over the decade of the 1990s.