Speech Pathology Australia - Allied Health Assistant Feature

in focus

Can you talk about the schemes under which your AHAs work and how do you make engaging AHAs work financially? - NDIS and fee paying clients Knowing your business numbers inside out is very important in maintaining this service. Making sure you understand your breakeven figures and the minimum number of clients the AHA must support on their shift. What tips do you have for those speech pathologists thinking about working with an AHA? Allocate appropriate amounts of time to training Allied Health Assistants and dedicate time for structured and frequent check ins Consider rolling the model out as a trial with one clinician or one clinic location first and develop the majority of your policies and procedures prior to onboarding and don’t underestimate the time commitment in having an AHA.

We also have TalkHQ internal training modules, structured meetings and our AHA's undergo training in our 0-100 program for a supported start to working at TalkHQ. What additional benefits do you see for your practice in having an AHA? • Supporting in backfilling when we are faced with recruitment challenges rurally (i.e., block on block off for appropriate clients alternating between SP and AHA). • Allowing AHAs to have an idea of what it is like working in a private practice. • Clients who are requiring increased dosage and frequency of therapy can receive it. • Managing waiting lists.

Sam Gilmour Senior Speech Pathologist Chinchilla Hospital, Darling Downs NSW S am Gilmour is a rural generalist speech pathologist, at Chinchilla Hospital. Sam’s work includes outreach to the Western Downs region of NSW working as a clinician but also as a supervisor of clinicians and students. She is also the supervisor for the multidisciplinary AHA who works with Speech, OT, physio and dietetics teams at the hospital.

For Sam the key to having a successful working relationship with an AHA is about preparation and planning and clear delineation and understanding of the role. “Our AHA Mat, started with us just over two years ago. It was a brand-new position, so there was a bit of work in setting it up as a new position. “For our team it was a big draw card to have a multidisciplinary AHA. There already were examples of AHAs being used in the western cluster, which was working well, and we thought it would work well with our services. “Our AHA works full time and he’s based at Chinchilla Hospital. But like me, he goes and does outreach to the other smaller hospitals as well. “I would definitely recommend taking your time when planning a role for an AHA. You need to make sure you have all your processes and procedures set up before they arrive. “You need to set up all of the assessment and clinical tasks and non-clinical tasks that you want them to do, and what documentation and procedures need to be created and reviewed by everyone in your team and finalised before the AHA commences.

Sam’s team utilised information from Queensland Health to write procedures on how to introduce new clinical tasks and how to write up clinical task instructions for the AHA. “You want the AHA to feel like a valued member of the team. And for the AHA to be clear about their role. It does take time for an AHA to really settle into the role." How do you utilise your AHA in your everyday work? “Our AHA is able to help out clinically. We are quite busy and have a lot of different sites. In our case, though, we wouldn’t necessarily be able to give as much support so he’s able to take extra sessions, we wouldn’t be able to give as much time to the clients so that’s very helpful. “He is also really helpful in terms of general support. For example, the other day was hectic and busy clinical day. He was able to run around and grab printing in charts and helped me do what I needed to do. He does other tasks Senior Speech Pathologist Sam Gilmour working with AHA Mathew Skow at Chinchilla Hospital.

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June 2021 | Speak Out