ArticleHealth services research2023
Effects of an electronic health record-based mobility assessment and automated referral for inpatient physical therapy on patient outcomes: A quasi-experimental study.
Article in Health services research, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 11 citations in OpenAlex.
- Barriers to Occupational and Physical Therapy Utilization for Children With Cancer.Cancer medicine · 2026Article
- Advancing the Implementation of Patient-Centered Outcomes in Rehabilitation Learning Health Systems: Insights From the 2024 LeaRRn Summit.Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation · 2026Article
- Development and Health System Deployment of an Electronic Health Record-Integrated Chatbot Intervention for Connecting Fall Risk Screening to Community Resources After Emergency Department Visits: Implementation Study.JMIR formative research · 2025Article
- Development and Validation of PT-PENCIL: The Physical Therapy Frequency Clinical Decision Support Tool to Increase Hospital Discharge to Home.Physical therapy · 2025Article
- Operationalising routinely collected patient data in research to further the pursuit of social justice and health equity: a team-based scoping review.BMC medical research methodology · 2025Article
- Geriatric screening in the emergency department increases consultations to geriatric medicine and physical and occupational therapy: A pre/post cohort study.Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine · 2024Observational
- Relevance and use of health policy, health systems and health services research for strengthening rehabilitation in real-life settings: methodological considerations.European journal of physical and rehabilitation medicine · 2024Article
- Reducing Physical Therapy Consults for Patients With High Functional Mobility in the Acute Medical Inpatient Setting: A Difference-in-Difference Analysis.Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation · 2024Article
- Effects of an electronic health record-based mobility assessment and automated referral for inpatient physical therapy on patient outcomes: A quasi-experimental study.Health services research · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo assess the effectiveness of a hospital physical therapy (PT) referral triggered by scores on a mobility assessment embedded in the electronic health record (EHR) and completed by nursing staff on hospital admission. DATA SOURCES: EHR and billing data from 12 acute care hospitals in a western Pennsylvania health system (January 2017-February 2018) and 11 acute care hospitals in a northeastern Ohio health system (August 2019-July 2021). STUDY
designWe utilized a regression discontinuity design to compare patients admitted to PA hospitals with stroke who reached the mobility score threshold for an EHR-PT referral (treatment) to those who did not (control). Outcomes were hospital length of stay (LOS) and 30-day readmission or mortality. Control variables included demographics, insurance, income, and comorbidities. Hospital systems with EHR-PT referrals were also compared to those without (OH hospitals as alternative control). Subgroup analyses based on age were also conducted. DATA EXTRACTION: We identified adult patients with a primary or secondary diagnosis of stroke and mobility assessments completed by nursing (n = 4859 in PA hospitals, n = 1749 in OH hospitals) who completed their inpatient stay. PRINCIPAL
findingsIn the PA hospitals, patients with EHR-PT referrals had an 11.4 percentage-point decrease in their 30-day readmission or mortality rates (95% CI -0.57, -0.01) relative to the control. This effect was not observed in the OH hospitals for 30-day readmission (β = 0.01; 95% CI -0.25, 0.26). Adults over 60 years old with EHR-PT referrals in PA had a 26.2 percentage-point (95% CI -0.88, -0.19) decreased risk of readmission or mortality compared to those without. Unclear relationships exist between EHR-PT referrals and hospital LOS in PA.
conclusionsHealth systems should consider methodologies to facilitate early acute care hospital PT referrals informed by mobility assessments.
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