(Updated) Rehabilitation Measures Database

Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC)
Rehabilitation and Research Training Center (RRTC) on Improving Measurement of Medical Rehabilitation Outcomes
Submitted by Jennifer Moore and Jason Raad

Focus

Knowledge translation is promoted by the use of the most appropriate and sensitive data collection instruments. Such use can contribute to more easily determining the clinical translation of research evidence.

Context

A common challenge for rehabilitation clinicians is the lack of commonality across data collection instruments used in the provision of care. The variation also includes the use of instrumentation for data collection that may not be validated and sensitive to relevant information in a particular clinical case. The use of more consistent, valid, and sensitive instrumentation provides an opportunity to appropriately aggregate data and assess effectiveness leading to the description of evidence-based practices. RRTC staff developed the RMD in collaboration with intended users to effectively address and overcome this challenge.

KT Activity

The RRTC engaged in 7 focus groups of 75 medical rehabilitation professionals to offer input on the creation of the RMD. The input provided the basis for the development of the free, user-friendly, web-based, searchable RMD.
The RMD provides instrument summaries that include descriptions of the psychometric properties of each instrument and instructions for administering and scoring each assessment. In addition to the instrument summary, the RMD provides a link to the instrument to download if it is freely available or information about where to obtain the instrument if it is not.
The RMD is most useful to rehabilitation clinicians if the resources within it are current. The RRTC developed collaborations with clinicians, professional associations, and universities to ensure that the information in the RMD database remains current as new standardized instruments become available and updates to the instrument summaries are made. Health science programs use the RMD as part of their curricula. Students from these programs assist with writing instrument summaries for class credit and ensure that participating students are aware of the RMD once they are in the field and can competently use the database.

Impact

Between January 1, 2013, and August 31, 2013, the RMD observed, on average, 1,851 daily page views. Approximately 54% of those page views were from first-time viewers in more than 150 countries. These data suggest that the RMD may be promoting widespread utilization of standardized instruments relevant to medical rehabilitation clinical care.
Between January 1, 2015, and December 31, 2015, the RMD experienced an average of 3,852 site visits per day and nearly 3,000,000 page views. Approximately 53% of those page views were from first-time viewers in more than 150 countries. The users of the RMD appear to have varied backgrounds: A recent survey of 514 users who regularly access the website classified themselves as clinicians (31.5%), clinical managers/supervisors (11.67%), administrators (4.47%), academics/researchers (37.35%), students (6.03%), and others (8.95%). Survey respondents also indicated that the RMD is effective in promoting use of outcome measures for clinical practice (97%), research initiatives (96%), manuscript preparation (90%), grant preparation (92%), and student projects (95%).

Learning

The RMD offers a collection of information summaries and links to instrumentation that is significant in promoting standardization of data collection. Additional evaluative information needs to be collected to aid in understanding the extent to which the utilization of instrumentation selected through use of the RMD eventuates in establishing the foundation for clinical translation of research evidence.
Read more at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24076083

Contact Information

Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago

345 East Superior Street
Chicago, IL 60611
Phone: 1-800-354-REHAB (7342)
Rehabilitation Measures Database: https://www.sralab.org/rehabilitation-measures
Website: http://www.ric.org

---