The RCA continues to support and expand the rollout of three tools that allow organizations to gather and report data on outpatient rehabilitative care.

The three tools — NACRS Clinic Lite, Community Rehab Assessment and WatLX™ — were piloted provincially in 2017/18 as part of the RCA’s proof of concept for a standardized outpatient/ambulatory minimum data set (MDS). Two of the tools are now available more widely, while the third is part of a Phase II pilot. 

NACRS Clinic Lite (Access and Transition/Financial Performance)
The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care has mandated the use of NACRS Clinic Lite for all organizations participating in the Ministry’s bundled funding pilot for hip and knee replacements. The tool was recently updated by the RCA and the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) to significantly reduce data entry demands on staff. It can be used with any patient population and is available to all organizations.

WatLX™ (Patient Experience)
Beginning in Q2 of 2018/19, the WatLX™ will be made available to hospitals through the Ontario Hospital Association and NRC Health for the collection of patient experience during outpatient care. NRC Health’s infrastructure will provide support to distribute the outpatient survey, collect and manage the data centrally and produce reports.

Community Rehab Assessment (Clinical Outcomes)
The RCA is now conducting a Phase II pilot of the revised Community Rehab Assessment (CRA) tool with 28 organizations across the province. The tool has been shortened and streamlined based on the results of the RCA’s proof of concept. The nine-month pilot will explore how to better integrate the tool into existing clinical processes and demonstrate the tool’s value in measuring functional change and describing complexity of rehab patients for different rehabilitation populations. The CRA assesses function in areas such as activities of daily living (ADLs), gait speed, cognition and pain. 

For more information, please email info@rehabcarealliance.ca.