Same-day physical therapy consults in an outpatient neuromuscular disease physician clinic

Abstract

Background

Team-based care has been shown to offer more comprehensive benefits to patients when compared to standard physician-based care alone in clinics for chronic conditions. However, apart from grant-funded multidisciplinary clinics, there are no reports on the usage of same-day physical therapy (PT) consults within a daily outpatient neuromuscular disease (NMD) physician clinic.

Objective

To determine the impact of same-day PT consults at the University of Utah’s outpatient Clinical Neurosciences Center.

Design

A qualitative assessment and survey of patient satisfaction.

Methods

An eight question Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act-compliant patient satisfaction survey using a 5-point Likert scale was administered. Demographic data and Press-Ganey Provider Satisfaction surveys were retrospectively collected from electronic medical records for patients receiving same-day PT encounters in the neuromuscular division over 1 year.

Results

Mean (standard deviation) age was 54.22 (19.81) years for 134 patient encounters, median age was 60 years, with 76 male (57%) and 58 female (43%) patients. Mean Likert score for 61 self-reported patient satisfaction surveys for same-day PT consults was 4.87 (97.4%). Press-Ganey Provider Satisfaction scores improved from 89.9% (N=287) for the year prior to 90.8% (N=320) for the corresponding year (P=0.427). A total of 46 (75.4%) patients have either never before received PT care or never before received PT care for their NMD, 67.4% of whom were male.

Conclusion

Same-day PT consults in an outpatient NMD physician clinic demonstrated excellent patient satisfaction and improved access to specialty care. This model could potentially be implemented in other academic medical centers to improve access to rehabilitation services for patients with NMD.

Keywords:

• neuromuscular therapy
• neuromuscular care
• team-based health care
• physical therapy consults
• same-day physical therapy
• physician clinics
• patient satisfaction

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all of the staff and faculty at the University of Utah’s Clinical Neurosciences Center for their enthusiastic support of this study, especially the physicians and fellows in the Neuromuscular Division of Medicine and their support team, including Mark Bromberg, Russell Butterfield, Yoonhee Choi, Kelsey Juster, Summer Gibson, Peter Hannon, Noah Kolb, Rob Singleton, Ligia Onofrei, Deborah Eve Foster, Allison Taylor, Abby Smart, Amber Harkin, and Cassie Kuhn.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.