In this episode of O&P Rising, recorded live at the 52nd Academy Annual Meeting in Nashville, guest host Emily Dinelli, PhD, MPO, CPO, a research assistant with the Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, welcomes Fanny Schultea, MS, MSEd, CPO, LP, FAAOP(D), executive director of the Live in Motion Foundation, and Graci Finco, PhD, CPO, assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology at Texas Christian University, for a conversation about defining and improving healthcare quality in orthotics and prosthetics. They explore AHRQ’s six domains of quality, including safety, timeliness, effectiveness, efficiency, equity and patient centeredness, and explain why quality extends beyond outcome measures and is increasingly important as healthcare moves toward value-based care. The conversation highlights the role patients, clinicians, researchers, educators, manufacturers and other stakeholders play in advancing quality, as well as how clinics can make better use of the data they already collect to drive continuous improvement and address inequities. Schultea and Finco also discuss the return on investment of quality initiatives, why practices can start small by focusing on a single measure or domain, and opportunities for O&P professionals to pursue formal training in healthcare quality through fellowship funding from the Live in Motion Foundation.

O&P Rising is produced by Association Briefings.