Quantitative Functional Capacity Evaluation : The Missing Link To Outcomes Assessment

Practice aids and algorithms appear in Appendix A. O ASSESSMENT (OA) is a health care buzzword for the 1990’s. Quality assurance in health services delivery requires that certain guidelines be followed and that measurable outcomes be used to document the appropriateness of care. Most methods of OA have been “high-tech”, requiring substantial expenses of time and money. Due to the cost and the failure to demonstrate validity, a shift in emphasis to “low-tech” approaches has occurred. Modern methods of OA must be time efficient, economical, reliable and valid. Modern reporting on spinal pain patients requires a consensus-based classification approach, relevant historical data gathering, and reliable and valid OA of both subjective and functional parameters. Such an approach has great potential for future data collection and analysis and may even allow multiple high-quality care facilities to provide invaluable information for research purposes. Physicians, insurance companies, medico-legal reviewers and managed care organizations are becoming increasingly interested in OA and functional testing, because of the demand to objectify patient status and document patient progress during the course of treatment. OA represents a method used to measure a change in a patient’s health status as a result of some type of treatment approach. OA instruments are also utilized as a tool for measuring treatment effectiveness regardless of methods utilized. Moreover, OA plays an important role in steering quality care and cost containment. Quantitative Functional Capacity Evaluation: The Missing Link To Outcomes Assessment