OT’s Use of the Rehab Outcome Management System: Quantifying Value Through Outcome Measurement in Neurorehabilitation

To be responsive to the current healthcare reform initiatives, the field of occupational therapy (OT) needs measures that can reliably and validly assess the quality and value of its services across practice settings (Lamb & Metzler, 2014). Creating infrastructure to capture client outcomes is a key aspect of a learning health system that can both demonstrate and improve the quality of care (Fields et al., 2022). Intermountain ROMS® (Rehabilitation Outcomes Management System) is a rehabilitation-focused quality improvement software platform currently used by many physical therapists to make better, more personalized care decisions. An OT ROMS development team was formed in 2021 comprising numerous occupational therapy practitioners in the neurorehabilitation outpatient setting along with a data processor/technology specialist, a professional researcher, clinical operations specialists, and advisors. This short course will share the impetus for this initiative as well as the results of an ongoing 2-year pilot trialing systematic documentation of outcome measures across multiple neurorehabilitation outpatient clinics with 3,052 clients and 12,898 outcome measure entries and growing. The presenters will review the process of a) finalizing a client classification system to aid in the assignment and analysis of outcome measures and b) selecting a set of evidence-based outcome measures for use with clients with a neurological diagnosis. They address the challenges and successes of developing and implementing an outcome measures system to demonstrate the value of OT with complex neurological clients, including practical lessons that can be translated to other institutions (Briggs et al., 2020). They will also explain the initial findings that characterize the outpatient neurological population and discuss the next steps to expand the use of the OT ROMS into other rehabilitation settings to demonstrate value across the continuum of care.

References

Lamb, A. J., & Metzler, C. A. (2014). Defining the value of occupational therapy: A health policy lens on research and Practice. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 68(1), 9–14. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2014.681001

Kinney, A. R., Fields, B., Juckett, L., Read, H., Martino, M. N., & Weaver, J. A. (2022). Learning Health Systems Can Promote and Sustain High-Value Occupational Therapy. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 76(1), 7601347020.

Briggs, M. S., Rethman, K. K., Crookes, J., Cheek, F., Pottkotter, K., McGrath, S., DeWitt, J., Harmon-Matthews, L. E., & Quatman-Yates, C. C. (2020). Implementing patient-reported outcome measures in outpatient rehabilitation settings: A systematic review of facilitators and barriers using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 101(10), 1796–1812. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2020.04.007