Choosing a physical therapist that measures outcomes
Monday, March 23rd, 2015 | Rehabilitation | No Comments
If you don’t work in the healthcare industry, you may have heard the term “outcomes” but not understood what it meant. Why is measuring outcomes beneficial for both patients and healthcare providers?
First of all, what are outcomes? Simply put, measuring outcomes means measuring how successful a particular treatment is, whether in physical therapy or another field in healthcare. Kristina Holland, a physical therapist assistant at Clinton Physical Therapy Center (a Physiquality member in Tennessee), says, “When physical therapists measure their patients’ ‘outcomes,’ they are answering the question, ‘Has therapy helped my patient to function better?’” By collecting data on a variety of treatments over a period of time, physical therapists (and other healthcare providers) will have data that tells them what the most successful treatments are.
PTPN (the parent company of Physiquality) began measuring therapy outcomes system-wide in 2007. One goal of launching the program, says Mitch Kaye, a physical therapist and the Director of Quality Assurance for PTPN, was to “demonstrate that PTPN’s providers give treatment that is both effective and efficient.” Read More
