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Long-term trends in supply and sustainability of the health workforce in remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory of Australia

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Health Services Research, December 2017
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  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (94th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (98th percentile)

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5 news outlets
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2 X users

Citations

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38 Dimensions

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75 Mendeley
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Title
Long-term trends in supply and sustainability of the health workforce in remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory of Australia
Published in
BMC Health Services Research, December 2017
DOI 10.1186/s12913-017-2803-1
Pubmed ID
Authors

Yuejen Zhao, Deborah J. Russell, Steven Guthridge, Mark Ramjan, Michael P. Jones, John S. Humphreys, Timothy A. Carey, John Wakerman

Abstract

International evidence suggests that a key to improving health and attaining more equitable health outcomes for disadvantaged populations is a health system with a strong primary care sector. Longstanding problems with health workforce supply and turnover in remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory (NT), Australia, jeopardise primary care delivery and the effort to overcome the substantial gaps in health outcomes for this population. This research describes temporal changes in workforce supply in government-operated clinics in remote NT communities through a period in which there has been a substantial increase in health funding. Descriptive and Markov-switching dynamic regression analysis of NT Government Department of Health payroll and financial data for the resident health workforce in 54 remote clinics, 2004-2015. The workforce included registered Remote Area Nurses and Midwives (nurses), Aboriginal Health Practitioners (AHPs) and staff in administrative and logistic roles. total number of unique employees per year; average annual headcounts; average full-time equivalent (FTE) positions; agency employed nurse FTE estimates; high and low supply state estimates. Overall increases in workforce supply occurred between 2004 and 2015, especially for administrative and logistic positions. Supply of nurses and AHPs increased from an average 2.6 to 3.2 FTE per clinic, although supply of AHPs has declined since 2010. Each year almost twice as many individual NT government-employed nurses or AHPs are required for each FTE position. Following funding increases, some clinics doubled their nursing and AHP workforce and achieved relative stability in supply. However, most clinics increased staffing to a much smaller extent or not at all, typically experiencing a "fading" of supply following an initial increase associated with greater funding, and frequently cycling periods of higher and lower staffing levels. Overall increases in workforce supply in remote NT communities between 2004 and 2015 have been affected by continuing very high turnover of nurses and AHPs, and compounded by recent declines in AHP supply. Despite substantial increases in resourcing, an imperative remains to implement more robust health service models which better support the supply and retention of resident health staff.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 2 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 75 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 75 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 10 13%
Student > Ph. D. Student 8 11%
Researcher 6 8%
Student > Doctoral Student 6 8%
Student > Master 5 7%
Other 12 16%
Unknown 28 37%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Nursing and Health Professions 14 19%
Medicine and Dentistry 11 15%
Business, Management and Accounting 7 9%
Psychology 5 7%
Environmental Science 2 3%
Other 7 9%
Unknown 29 39%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 39. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 10 December 2019.
All research outputs
#924,375
of 23,577,654 outputs
Outputs from BMC Health Services Research
#237
of 7,846 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#22,726
of 442,994 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Health Services Research
#3
of 164 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,577,654 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 7,846 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 442,994 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 164 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.