2026/03/08 by Piers Truter, Louise Giglia‐Smith, Luke Bongiascia +5 · 1 voice
Health Professions · Medicine · #Nursing Roles and Practices #Emergency and Acute Care Studies #Occupational Therapy Practice and Research
paper · doi:10.1111/1742-6723.70241
openalex publication_date 2026/03/08 · openalex created_date 2026/03/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
BACKGROUND: Musculoskeletal conditions are the most common low acuity ED presentation. In response, over the last 13 years, Advanced Practice Physiotherapist (APP) roles have been established in emergency departments (ED) across Australia. Despite APP roles being well established in many Australian EDs, the current scope of practice for APPs as defined by discharge diagnosis is not accurately defined. OBJECTIVE: To derive a scope of practice based on ED diagnosis for APPs in an Australian tertiary hospital ED. METHODS: Descriptive classification study of patients who received care from an APP in the study ED between January 2015 and September 2024, with an iterative consensus process to establish the scope of APP practice by ED discharge diagnosis. RESULTS: APPs provided 37,771 individual episodes of care with 388 assigned International Classification of Diseases (10th revision) (ICD-10) discharge diagnoses. 204 ICD-10 diagnoses were rated as representing the local scope of practice for ED APPs. These codes accounted for 37,000 (98.2%) of the episodes of care. The APP team provided care for 33,713 adult patients, 4058 paediatric patients, 1197 patients who arrived by ambulance and 3477 patients referred to the ED by a GP. The consensus process demonstrated that APPs have clarity on their scope of practice and the capability to manage a differential diagnosis process that includes non-musculoskeletal diagnoses in the ED setting. CONCLUSION: Using 10 years of ED data, a consensus process mapped the local scope of practice of APPs in a single Western Australian Tertiary Hospital ED to 204 ICD-10 diagnoses.