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Full Text
MeSH TERMS
* data collection
* decision making
* evidence-based practice
* occupational therapy
* outcome and process assessment (health care)
To realize the American Occupational Therapy Association's Centennial Vision, occupational therapy practitioners must embrace practices thatare not only evidence based but also systematic, theoretically grounded, and driven by data related to outcomes. This article presents a framework, the Data-Driven Decision Making (DDDM) process, to guide clinicians' occupational therapy practice using systematic clinical reasoning with a focus on data. Examples are provided of DDDM In pediatrics and adult rehabilitation to guide practitioners In using data-driven practices to create evidence for occupational therapy.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of2010 (Pub.L. 111-148) has created an environment in which health care professionals must redefine their skills and expertise to ensure optimal outcomes using evidence-based practices. Fortunately, the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) promotes these practices in occupational therapy through its Centennial Vision (AOTA, 2007) by envisioning the profession as "powerful, widely recognized, science-driven, and evidence-based" (p. 614). To realize this vision, Burke and Gitlin (2012) and Schaaf and Blanche (2012) urged the adoption of evidence-based strategies by the field of occupational therapy to sustain and validate clinical practice. Moreover, Gutman (2009) warned that for occupational therapy to survive in today's health care environment, we must "generate evidence for practice" (p. 670).
Many occupational therapy leaders have supported this vision. For example, Law, Baum, and Dunn (2005) advocated that outcome measurement must be the standard for occupational therapy practice, and Kielhofner (2008) emphasized the use of assessment data to guide intervention and evaluate outcomes. Sudsawad (2006) noted that "creating outcome research that is usable for practice is one of the most important contributions occupational therapy research can make toward evidencebased practice" (p. 700), and Frolek Clark (2010) provided specific strategies for using data to guide practice decisions. However, despite this widespread emphasis on evidence-based practice and the use of outcome measures to document intervention effects, the literature has consistently shown that rehabilitation professionals are not using evidence and data to guide and measure their interventions. Barriers include clinicians' perceived lack of time, knowledge, and skill and the belief that a reliance on evidence may limit their ability to provide client-centered or family-centered care (King, Wright, &...