In 2006, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) committed to a national health workforce reform package. In 2010, Health Workforce Australia (HWA) was established to facilitate reforms across the health and education sectors, including building and operating Simulated Learning Environments (SLEs). The SLE National Project, managed by HWA, is divided into five phases, where Phase 2 is identifying and sourcing SLE curriculum.
A consortium comprising an existing collaboration of academics from the physiotherapy schools of seven universities and an industry partner completed Phase 2 for the discipline of Physiotherapy on behalf of HWA. This report summaries the project and provides recommendations on priority elements that can be supported by simulated learning programs (SLP) including a preferred model for curriculum implementation and analysis of barriers and ways to overcome these.
The project gathered information from a literature review, two electronic surveys of accredited schools of physiotherapy (including schools in the accreditation process) and discussions with physiotherapy academics at universities around Australia.