New tool boosts rehabilitation services at HMC

Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) is now licensed to use a unique assessment tool that helps occupational therapists to develop more effective treatment plans for patients.

Called the Functional Independence Measure (FIM) instrument, it is highly regarded worldwide as one of the most reliable methods of evaluating the outcomes of patients undergoing medical rehabilitation. The FIM scale focuses on identifying care needs by assessing physical and cognitive disability based on the level of help a person needs to complete day-to-day activities such as eating, dressing or using the bathroom.

The FIM tool was developed by the Uniform Data System for Medical Rehabilitation (UDSMR), a not-for-profit organization affiliated with the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. The USDMR maintains the world’s largest database for medical rehabilitation outcomes.  Healthcare and rehabilitation facilities worldwide use the system to assess and measure patient activity and progress objectively while in  medical rehabilitation.

“HMC has successfully completed the requirements of the UDSMR Mastery Examination and is licensed to use the FIM tool until 2014. I am pleased to say that 35 staff underwent the licensing examination with an average pass rate of 94.52 percent, and seven therapists got 100 percent in the examination,” said Sultan Salem Hammam Al- Abdullah, Chief of the Occupational Therapy Department at HMC.

The FIM instrument will enable HMC to generate important data for the accreditation process of the Joint Commission Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) and other regulatory agencies.

Commenting on the role of the FIM in future practice, Al-Abdullah said, “The FIM has been used extensively in research all over the world but so far it has rarely been used as outcome measure in research in Qatar. We now intend to use this tool for research purposes to compare rehabilitation outcomes such as length of stay and quality of life.”

Al-Abdullah thanked HMC for the support received for the purchase of and introduction of the tool.

Advertisement