Quote Originally Posted by Owen Harris View Post
I am looking to replace our assesment for for our orthopaedic department, and i have become stuck when it comes to appropriate outcome measures for orthaopaedic surgery. The main problem seems to be the patients generally come into hospital better than when they leave (at least functionally).
Any ideas?!?
Hope you guys can help.

Owen Harris
Your outcome measures for in-patient orthopaedic patients could end at the time of discharge. ie that they can be safely independent in transfers and self-care and on the stairs, and able to walk eg 100 meters with appropriate assistive devices depending on their weight-bearing status. Then you score them from eg 1-5 where 1 = no goals met and 5 = all goals met. Also you should include length of stay in your outcomes I guess.

Then you set new goals and devise new outcome measures for their rehab. You can use such tools as the Oxford Scale for knees and the Harris Hip score or the WOMAC or Short Form 36 assessments, for example. There are probably outcome measures for ankles/feet etc, but we only measure hips and knees!!