Bog Post 9-Higher Hospital Spending OT

I am in school to be an occupational therapist (OT). The most common questions I get is, "what is OT?" and "What can you do with that?" Even thought OT is celebrating its 100th year as a profession, not many people know what OT is or how the degree is used. Those who can describe OT, have usually had OT in some aspect of their life. An issue that has been a hot topic for the past few years is the baby boomers are getting older. This means more individuals are seeking out medical help as they age. This puts a strain on hospitals, rehab facilities, and even insurance companies. So what is being done to decrease this strain? Higher spending for OT services. What?! Why would anyone want to increase spending on OT services? Because higher spending on OT services leads to lower readmission rates. There was a study performed about a year ago on this exact process. The article, "Higher Hospital Spending on Occupational Therapy Is Associated With Lower Readmission Rates", was published in the Medical Care Research and Review Journal. The aim of the study was to help hospital CEO's see how to better allocate monetary resources within the hospital and to identify specific spending categories where higher spending has the potential to reduce readmission across various conditions.

The article is great! I encourage everyone to go read it. What is so great about OT that this profession alone reduces readmission rates? Well, OT's look at individual occupational roles and the goals that each client has. OT's do not look at the singular reason why someone is in OT, rather they look at the individual as a whole. A client could have an issue with their leg that is keeping them from performing their activities of daily life (ADL's) and they could have stiffness in their wrists, but they were not sent to OT for this issue. They were sent to gain mobility in their lower extremity. OT's would look at this situation and find a way to address it with a client. The OT values the whole person, not just the issue. By doing this, OT's can recommend alternative discharge plans that address the issues and thus reduce the likelihood of readmission.

Something that has been an main focus since entering OT school is, how can I advocate for OT? There have been many projects already that have addressed this. I find it very interesting that this study was not performed with the sole focus of advocating for OT. The researchers did see the benefit of OT. What they did, was to allow the research to speak for itself. " We found that occupational therapy is the only spending category where additional spending has a statistically significant association with lower readmission rates for all three medical conditions. One possible explanation is that occupational therapy places a unique and immediate focus on patients’ functional and social needs, which can be important drivers of readmission if left unaddressed (Rogers, Bai, Lavin, & Anderson, 2016) ."I believe this is the ultimate for of avocation. People want the facts and this article gave it to them. I hope that studies, into the benefit of OT, are continued.

Rogers, A. T., Bai, G., Lavin, R.A., Anderson, G.F. (2016). Higher hospital spending on occupational therapy is associated with lower readmission rates. Medical Care Research and Review, P.1-19, 10.1177/1077558716666981.