ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the 'outcomes' from a health professional's perspective. Thoughtful, strategic and informed use of outcome measures will inevitably help allied health professions in their efforts to support and sustain their valuable contribution to patient care and also in fulfilling the national health service, department of health, agendas. A. Long, J. Dixon and R. Hall describes an outcome measure as showing 'the results of processes that part of the situation pertaining after the process which can be attributed to the process'. There are hundreds of outcome measures for use in healthcare in addition to those listed above which can be uni-dimensional such as, mortality records - clinician recorded - or multi-dimensional questionnaires. There are a range of stakeholders interested in the outcome and/or the evaluation of the component parts of a typical therapeutic interaction. There is little point in a therapist in a department or practice using an outcome measure that no-one else in the clinical area is using.
