Digital Commons Network^™

Improving Access To Care For Specialty Pediatric Orthopedic Patients: Maximizing Telehealth To Achieve Outcomes, Tammy Keesey

Student Scholarly Projects

Practice Problem: The lack of resources such as transportation, insurance, and finances can negatively impact a patient’s access to much-needed specialty care. Providing education, assessing telehealth literacy, and creating a specific process for identifying appropriate telehealth visits can improve pediatric specialty access to care.

PICOT: The PICOT question for this project was: In pediatric orthopedic clinic patients (P), what is the impact of the active introduction of telehealth as a clinic visit option (I) versus the current standard passive process of scheduling telehealth visits (C) on the rates of access to care (O) after nine total weeks of …

Interfacility Transfer Of Pediatric Patients To A Comprehensive Children's Hospital, Kim Zaky

Student Scholarly Projects

Practice Problem: Secondary transfers to pediatric centers have increased by 25% due to the regionalization of specialty care. Low pediatric volume and the lack of access to pediatric subspecialty confounds the need for transfer requests to comprehensive children’s hospitals. Referring hospitals rely on pediatric teams to determine the level of service and mode of transportation decisions due to a lack of comfort in caring for and managing pediatric patients.

PICOT: This project was guided by the following question. In pediatric patients transferring from other healthcare facilities to a comprehensive children’s hospital (P), does the implementation of a nurse-led pediatric illness …

Implementation Of A Code Lobby Surge And The Impact On Left Without Being Seen Rates, Nicole Plouffe

Student Scholarly Projects

Practice Problem: Crowding of emergency departments contribute to higher-than-average left without being seen (LWBS) rates. LWBS patients pose risks to the hospital as well as to one’s own health.

PICOT: The PICOT question that guided this project was in a pediatric emergency department (P), does implementation of a “Code Lobby Surge” (I), compared to standard care (C), decrease left without being seen rates (O) within eight weeks (T)?

Evidence: Surge interventions and decreasing the visual of crowding have shown to decrease LWBS rates.

Intervention: “Code Lobby Surge” was implemented to decrease LWBS rates and improve throughput within the …

Leadership Rounding To Improve Patient Satisfaction In Pediatric Ambulatory Care, Tara J. Haskell

Student Scholarly Projects

Practice Problem: Low patient satisfaction has been linked to poor treatment compliance, patients leaving the practice, staff decreased job satisfaction, and high staff turnover (Haskard Zolnierek & DiMatteo, 2009; Prakash, 2010). Magnet reporting has identified wide discrepancies in ambulatory clinics, with some clinics reporting below benchmark patient satisfaction ratings.

PICOT: In pediatric ambulatory and primary care services, how will the implementation of leader-led customer service rounding, compared to current practice, increase family and/or patient satisfaction over 4 weeks?

Evidence: Key findings are that the rounding needs to be population-specific, intentional, and swiftly followed up when problems are identified. The body …

Developing Educational Resources To Support The Use Of The Hippotherapy Evaluation And Assessment Tool, Emily Peoples

Student Capstone Papers

The Hippotherapy Evaluation and Assessment Tool (HEAT) was created in 2011 with the goal of creating an assessment specific to this therapeutic intervention and effectively tracking client progress. Based on the current literature of client progress during hippotherapy intervention, four domains of scoring were created: Static Posture, Dynamic Motor Behavior, Sensory Processing, and Psychosocial/Behavioral. Over the years, many thesis studies have been conducted to confirm the reliability and validity of the HEAT. However, further dissemination was required as many therapists had not yet heard of the tool. A doctoral capstone project was completed in 2019-2020 to create a training program …

Caregiver Perspectives On Telehealth: A Service Delivery For Occupational Therapy, Rebecca Johnston

Student Capstone Papers

Telehealth; also known as telerehabilitation, telecare, telemedicine, teletherapy, and telepractice; is an emerging healthcare service that is utilized in various healthcare facilities with a span of ages, conditions, and locations (World Federation of Occupational Therapy [WFOT], 2014). Telehealth utilizes information and communication technologies to deliver services to a patient when the healthcare provider is not in the same location (WFOT, 2014). Telehealth can provide an online platform for evaluations, consultations, monitoring, supervision, and intervention with patients and other professionals (WFOT, 2014).

Telehealth is an emerging method of delivering occupational therapy (OT) services to various populations, including: children and youth; productive …