BOSTON UNIVERSITY REHABILITATION RESEARCH CENTER TO DEVELOP COMPUTER ADAPTIVE SOFTWARE FOR OUTCOMES MEASUREMENT

Wednesday, April 16, 2003

(Boston, MA) -- Boston University’s Center for Rehabilitation Effectiveness was recently awarded $1,733, 650 from the National Institutes on Disability and Rehabilitation Research to develop computer adaptive (CAT) software that will more effectively measure outcomes of rehabilitation in post-acute care settings. The software will be designed for use by hospitals, outpatient clinics, and long-term care facilities that need to demonstrate the effectiveness of their rehabilitation programs and services.

The CAT software will maintain accuracy and precision at lower levels of response burden for the patient and provider by replacing the paper and pencil measures currently used and eliminating the need to answer questions that are not relevant for a particular client or individual.

“Post-acute care providers are more likely to collect and use outcomes data for quality monitoring and outcomes research if routine clinical data collection can become more efficient,” explains Dr. Stephen Haley, Principal Investigator for this project and Director of Center for Rehabilitation Effectiveness at Boston University’s Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. “Functional assessments that used to take more than twenty minutes, will take only a few minutes using this technology.”

Dr. John E. Ware, Jr. at QualityMetric, Inc. and Barbara Gandek, M.S. at the Health Assessment Lab (HAL) will collaborate with investigators at Boston University on this project. QualityMetric, Inc. will develop the CAT software for this project and HAL will develop item content for one of the outcome domains. Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital will serve as major clinical site for the evaluation of the CAT products. The series of computer-based measures are expected to be ready for dissemination to the rehabilitation field by 2005.

The Center for Rehabilitation Effectiveness (CRE) at Boston University’s Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences is an academic research center that has been created to study exclusively the process and outcomes of rehabilitative services. CRE collaborates with rehabilitation providers to develop effective outcomes measures and information management systems and improve processes of rehabilitation care. For more information about CRE call (617) 353-3277 or visit http://www.bu.edu/cre. For more information about Boston University’s Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences visit http://www.bu.edu/sargent.