Choosing a physical therapist that measures outcomes
with advice from Mitch Kaye, PT
If you don’t work in the healthcare industry, you may have heard the term “outcomes” but not understood what it meant. Why is measuring outcomes beneficial for both patients and healthcare providers?
First of all, what are outcomes? Simply put, measuring outcomes means measuring how successful a particular treatment is, whether in physical therapy or another field in healthcare. When physical therapists measure their patients’ “outcomes,” they are trying to determine whether therapy has improved a patient’s function, i.e., can she do the daily activities she was able to do before the injury? By collecting data on a variety of treatments over a period of time, physical therapists (and other healthcare providers) will have data that tells them what the most successful treatments are for many common injuries.