My best friend has been employed within the same rehabilitation organization for 25 years. She will be leaving the organization before the beginning of June. The main reason was because of a sale and a change of direct oversight. As she spoke of the upcoming changes, we both knew that she could not stay.

There are definitely many, many employment opportunities for physical therapists. A major factor when choosing employment seems to be the focus of organization. Do organizations really focus on what matters the most? I actually had to text my best friend that it appeared she had to choose the lesser of two evils. It shouldn’t be that way, should it?

What matters most for rehabilitation providers? First and foremost an organization’s culture should focus on the patient. I’m not talking the number of units that should be billed per visit… nor am I talking the number of patients that need to be seen per day. A culture that meets the needs of each is what matters most.

What a patient needs fits perfectly into our skill set: they want to get back to life. They want to have someone address their pain; they need someone to educate them. Many want to be actively engaged in their care – they want to be involved in making decisions. They want to be heard. When you meet their needs and create a strong therapeutic relationship, you become their provider for the rest of their life. You will be the person that they seek out whenever your services are needed. If you really knock it out of the park, your patients will demonstrate high loyalty and tell their family and friends to choose you when services are needed.

Each patient is an N=1 opportunity. Each N=1 opportunity is an important step. What if all the N=1 could be pulled together into a big bundle of data? This is definitely possible with the right system. Each N=1 can be measured. A reasonably simple way is to use patient-reported outcome measures. If the system includes a risk adjustment process to predict an outcome, this is a huge added value because you now have a way to compare the actual results with the predicted result. You can do so much with that kind of data.

Your data can be used to help persuade someone to choose you. If you can demonstrate that your services are both effective and efficient, you may gain new referrals. Your potential patients are searching online for options – they have higher financial responsibilities and are more engaged in making health care decisions. If you are able to provide social messages revolving around the quality of the care you provide, you make it easy for your loyal patients to share your messages. You can share results with physicians. You can negotiate higher payments. You can more easily target continuing education needs. You have specific data at your fingertips to help drive decisions to continually improve the quality of the care you provide.

I wonder about organizations with a strong focus on productivity. Are these organizations able to meet patient needs? Are these organizations able to create highly loyal patients? And… in this health care world focusing on value, will these organizations survive? I don’t know, but it seems a high focus on productivity equates to short term profit. Longevity requires long term vision that includes more data than just productivity and profit. It costs more to attain new patients than it does to retain patients for life. Retaining and creating loyalty requires high quality of care and strong therapeutic alliance. The cool thing about quality is that there is a way to implement a system into an organization to help with strategies focused on longevity.

Until next time,

The post Rehabilitation Services: What Matters the Most? appeared first on FOTO Patient Outcomes.

As I think back to my undergraduate years, one class that seems to have immediate recall was my statistics class. The professor was quite picky with how we learned and completed statistical projects. One initial requirement was showing our work. I had pages of numbers and formulas and “long math.” Completing the projects was long, tedious and detail-focused. I can still feel the relief when a huge project was assigned with a new twist: SAS (statistical analysis software)! It was so magical to input numbers, wait a couple of days and receive a report with all the needed values.

I have similar feelings when it comes to outcomes. Yes, I have done the DIY method. Dang, time flies… I really dove into trying to learn my outcomes 18 years ago. It took me about 16 months to have a working plan in place before I could even begin to collect data. I mean, I had no idea what to even put the data into and had to learn Access. I chose to use the typical condition specific legacy measures (Oswestry Disability Index, Neck Disability Index, Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand, and the Lower Extremity Functional Scale).  I also included a generic health legacy measure (Physical Function – 10 Item).  Talk about the volume of paper that went into my DIY project: paper legacy measures…. paper data collection forms… paper reports. I spent weekends and weekends completing data collection forms. I spent so many weekends entering data. I had to figure out how to analyze the data, but to do that meant I had to create queries which would then dump into Excel which then led to calculations which then lead to creating visual reports. 

And now, as I sit and reflect on this experience, what exactly did I learn? I learned that once I started, the data collection, the calculations and the report generation would be never ending. I learned quite a bit at the patient level. I never could quite figure out how to have my calculation process take into consideration older adults versus the younger population… or someone with a chronic problem versus a recent injury… or someone who had surgery versus someone who did not. I learned that I could not compare my results to anyone else in the industry. 

Because of “yesterday,” I truly appreciate the Do-It-For-You option. I very much appreciate the FOTO Team and the FOTO Research Advisory Board because they basically solved my calculation problems. I now no longer spend weekends completing data collection forms… I no longer spend weekends entering data into Access. I don’t have to create Excel spreadsheets or visual reports. 

In today’s world my simplistic DIY methodology would have failed to provide benefit with third party payers. My DIY methodology actually put me at risk. My outcomes data could not help compare my outcomes with any other clinician. The DIY methodology only provided information at the patient level. The Do-It-For-You option included the all-important risk adjustment process. 

Until next time,

~Selena 

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