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Table 1 The SWOT analysis of the US case

From: Regulating health professional scopes of practice: comparing institutional arrangements and approaches in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK

Strengths

Supports workforce innovation responsive to local needs

Licensure compacts allowing licensure recognition and sharing of regulatory data across jurisdictions

Weaknesses

Patchwork of approaches and reforms across jurisdictions

Process for changing state regulations is slow, adversarial and costly

Failure to reconcile legal scope of practice with professional competency in state regulation

Opportunities

Increasing use of interprofessional team-based models of care

Enables the ‘testing’ of innovative models in one state for potential implantation across other states

Payment reform

Focus on population health

Threats

Restrictive scopes of practice are inefficient and can limit access to care

Failure to systematically evaluate workforce innovation