Disclosures: Tawnee L. Sparling, MD: No financial relationships or conflicts of interest
Objective: To improve patient care by making knowledge of and access to community and hospital system resources more accessible to resident providers.
Design: A PDSA (Plan, Do, Study, Act) approach was used to standardize a set of resources accessible to resident physicians. Setting : Resident continuity clinic within the department of physical medicine and rehabilitation at an urban academic hospital. Participants : 23 physiatry residents currently enrolled in all years of training. Residents were divided into 5 pre-assigned teams that work together each week in a single residency continuity clinic.
Interventions: All residents were provided with a templated note via their hospital’s EMR (electronic medical record) that included smart phrases and links to various patient resources (support groups, educational material, local adaptive sports programs, etc). They were taught to use the templates to provide specific resources to patients through a printable after visit summary.
Main Outcome Measures: The primary outcome measure was the difference in mean number of resources physically provided to patients after the intervention. Secondary outcome measures were the percent utilization of the template by residents and distribution statistics of individual resources.
Results: Implementation of this EMR-based tool resulted in significant increases in resources provided to patients at each encounter. Conclusions: A major role of the physiatrist is to lead and coordinate care for a patient’s rehabilitation team. In order to adequately perform this role, we must first establish what resources are available to benefit patients with different diagnoses. This quality improvement study has revealed that residents at various stages of training are not intrinsically equipped to provide an adequate level of local and regional resource coordination. However, when provided with and trained to use an electronic smart phrase template, they become more comfortable educating patients on available resources.
Level of Evidence: Level IV
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
Sparling TL, Harris A, Hefner J. Patient Resource Accessibility for Resident Providers in a Continuity Clinic: A Quality Improvement Study [abstract]. PM R. 2020; 12(S1)(suppl 1). https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/patient-resource-accessibility-for-resident-providers-in-a-continuity-clinic-a-quality-improvement-study/. Accessed May 16, 2025.« Back to AAPM&R Annual Assembly 2020
PM&R Meeting Abstracts - https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/patient-resource-accessibility-for-resident-providers-in-a-continuity-clinic-a-quality-improvement-study/