Patient factors and day of the week influencing physical therapy non-treatment events in the acute care setting

Background. In acute care hospitals, scheduled physical therapy visits not resulting in treatment may increase patient length of stay and the financial burden to the hospital. Previous literature has not fully evaluated the occurrence of these events, nor have any associated factors been identified. Objective. Measure the rate of non-treatment and determine which patient characteristics were most likely to predict a non-treatment event. Design. Retrospective review of documentation at a suburban hospital. Methods. Data were collected from records of 1,096 patients, totaling 6,097 scheduled sessions. The rate of non-treatment was calculated and logistic regression used to evaluate the odds of scheduled therapy visits resulting in no treatment. Variables included in the model were: patient age, gender, diagnosis, and day of the week. Results. Non-treatment rate for all scheduled sessions was 15.9%. The only significant predictor for non-treatment was “day of the week” with treatments scheduled on Sunday being 1.76 times more likely to not occur than treatmentsscheduled on Wednesday. Patients scheduled on Tuesday were 2.70 times more likely to receive treatment than patients scheduled on Wednesday. Patient age, gender and diagnosis did not have any significant effect on the rate of nontreatment. Discussion and Conclusion. Therapists should not base their judgment of patients on their age, gender and diagnosis as these factors did not affect nontreatment. Day of the week may have a significant effect on non-treatment rates in the acute setting and may be considered when seeking to improve patient care