Practice analysis of practitioners in prosthetic and orthotic industry in Malaysia.

The high demand for prosthetic and orthotic practitioner which is due to the number of people with disabilities is increasing. They are in need of the prosthetic and orthotic services offered by private or public health care institution. Hence, it is becoming a problem when certain health care institutions have a small number of practitioners plus the price of the service is quite expensive. Therefore, it is important to have a division of work for each of the practitioners. Besides, each of the personnel is able to focus on their work field as per requirements of the education, training programs, and experience gained in prosthetic and orthotic industry. Furthermore, to most of the disabled people, they are lack of awareness regarding prosthetic and orthotic services provided by the healthcare institution. Lack of allocation and funding from government and non-government agencies will have an impact in terms of providing training facilities, difficulty in hiring practitioner and the need to compete with other units of hospitalization which is more serious. Most practitioners are dominated by male, age range between 25 – 34 years old and the number of experience is less than five years. The result of this study showed that domain such as patient assessment, implementation of the treatment plan and promotion of competency and enhancement of professional were the most domains performed by practitioners. The average number of disabled people that could be treated per technician at the district centre was 300. For the state centre, there were 250 disabled people per Certified Prosthetic Orthotic (CPO) and technician. At the national centre, the average number for disabled people is 125 per CPO and technician. These numbers were used to determine the number of practitioners who could deal with disabled people each year. Based on the estimation, a total of 640 CPO and technicians were needed in Malaysia to provide prosthetic and orthotic services to disabled individuals. In conclusion, segregation of roles and responsibility between CPO and technician should be practised by practitioners in the prosthetic and orthotic industry in Malaysia.