Shared Decision Making and Reducing the Use of Low-Value Occupational Therapy Interventions.

Shared decision making (SDM), or the process by which clients actively work with health care professionals to make informed decisions about health care options, is critical to value-based, client-centered care and representing client preferences as part of the occupational therapy process. With the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the continued focus on patient-centered care models and quality indicators, occupational therapy practitioners must be prepared to engage in SDM. In this Health Policy Perspectives article, we provide considerations about how occupational therapy practitioners may use Choosing Wisely® recommendations to engage clients in SDM and provide high-quality evidence-based care.

Development and Refinement of the American Occupational Therapy Association's Knowledge Translation Toolkit.

IMPORTANCE: Occupational therapy practitioners are expected to translate promising discoveries from empirical research into routine practice with their clients. However, complex barriers can influence practitioners' knowledge translation (KT) efforts, leading the American Occupational Therapy Association's Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) group to develop the KT Toolkit tailored to the perceived needs of occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants. OBJECTIVE: To identify common barriers to implementing EBPs and potential strategies to support EBP uptake. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey. SETTING: United States. PARTICIPANTS: Occupational therapy practitioners. OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Data underwent descriptive and directed content analysis, the latter of which was guided by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. RESULTS: Occupational therapy survey respondents (N = 818) identified common EBP implementation barriers (e.g., lack of time and resources, difficulty understanding research findings). Initial KT Toolkit content was developed to address these barriers and included resources for searching for, analyzing, and applying evidence in practice. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Survey findings have informed the development of the KT Toolkit, which includes resources designed to support occupational therapy practitioners' EBP implementation efforts. This KT Toolkit is available at AOTA.org and will be continuously revised and updated on an ongoing basis. What This Article Adds: Several barriers limit the extent to which occupational therapy practitioners can implement evidence with their client populations. The KT Toolkit is directly informed by practitioner input and provides resources to support practitioners in their efforts to translate knowledge into real-world practice.