Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, in partnership with Massachusetts General Hospital, Spaulding Hospital Cambridge Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and its affiliates at Indiana University School of Medicine will use knowledge translation (KT) principles and procedures to promote use of evidence-based practice guidelines on management of persons with disorders of consciousness (DoC), co-sponsored by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research, American Academy of Neurology and American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine.
The overarching goal of this five-year project focused on improving health and function is to improve the quality of care delivered to persons with acquired DoC, maximizing the probability of functional recovery in this marginalized population. The objectives are to: 1) characterize awareness, attitudes and contextual determinants influencing adoption of the DoC practice guidelines for diagnosis and prognosis among providers who provide clinical services to persons with DoC; 2) develop DoC guideline KT interventions that are customized to setting-specific contextual determinants to promote their use; and 3) obtain preliminary data on the impact of customized DoC guideline KT interventions by assessing their acceptability, adoption, and use in real-world clinical settings.
Anticipated outcomes include new knowledge on key barriers to adoption of the practice guidelines and provider receptivity to setting-specific KT interventions designed to enhance use in clinical practice. Expected products include, 1) a novel DoC Guideline Knowledge and Beliefs Survey, 2) a library of contextualized KT interventions aimed at translating the guidelines into clinical practice and 3) preliminary data on the acceptance and adoption of the customized KT interventions at the provider and setting level, informing dissemination, scale-up and implementation studies.
