A Retrospective Quality Improvement Study to Describe Operational Management Strategies in an Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Danielle Struble-Fitzsimmons, Rachel Feld-Glazman, Elizabeth Dominick and 6 others
PMID 34303668WHAT IT FOUND
Inpatients continued to make functional gains despite pandemic restrictions, but length of stay increased.
Bedside therapy and reduced hours did not prevent improvements in self-care and mobility scores compared to the prior year.
Key findings
01Patients in the pandemic period showed greater improvement in self-care, mobility, and walking scores from admission to discharge than patients from the prior year.
02Average length of stay was higher during the pandemic, likely due to discharge disruptions such as skilled nursing facilities refusing positive patients and limited home services.
03Therapy services were maintained for all patients, with 100% receiving at least 5 days per week, despite shifts to bedside care and reduced daily hours for some.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Single-site retrospective design with no control group; comparisons are historical, not concurrent. Confounding factors such as changes in patient severity or type between years are not adjusted for. The increase in functional gains could be due to longer length of stay rather than therapy efficacy. Qualitative reports of staff and patient feelings are subjective and not systematically measured.
Declared interests
None reported.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the higher functional gain scores as evidence that pandemic restrictions improved therapy effectiveness. The gains may reflect the longer length of stay (17.93 days vs 16.38 days), which allowed more time for recovery, rather than the quality of care under constraints.