A cross-sectional evaluation examining the use of the Achilles tendinopathy toolkit by physiotherapists in British Columbia, Canada

Abstract

Evaluation of KT strategies is critical. This study revealed high awareness and moderate use of the ATT. Future work should consider the impact of toolkits on patient outcomes. Implications for Rehabilitation A toolkit is a novel knowledge translation (KT) strategy designed to provide accessibleevidence-informed resources to facilitate best practice by clinicians. The evaluation of the Achilles tendinopathy toolkit (ATT) revealed favourable findingsregarding the impact of this KT strategy on the knowledge and attitudes of British Columbia(BC) PTs and the possibility of a positive impact on best practice in clinical care. This research suggests toolkits are a feasible and meaningful KT strategy to provide clinicianswith valuable synthesized resources that have the potential to benefit patient outcomes.

Spread tools: a systematic review of components, uptake, and effectiveness of quality improvement toolkits

“…Most respondents rated the 10 components as “very useful—critical to retain.” Two recommended practices were rated lower in both degree of implementation and usefulness: routine active management of the third stage of labor, and hemorrhage debriefings. Each of these two recommended practices was rated as critical to retain by 60% of participants. Providers : NR Procedures : 77% indicated they had implemented or implemented and sustained each of the 10 recommended practices. Patients : NREzzat 2017 [62]CanadaPhysical therapyPractices# hospitals: NR# providers: 238# patients: NRPost-onlyAchilles tendinopathy Toolkit (ATT Implementation : Summary of the evidence of physical therapy interventions with clinical implications, details (e.g., methods and findings) of the individual articles that informed the evidence summaries Provider : Treatment algorithm, relevant outcome measures and supporting resources specific to: exercise prescription, LASER dosage calculation, major medical and surgical interventions Patient : NR Other intervention : To support its adoption by PABC members, a webinar demonstrating how to use the ATT involving a series of case studies was conducted in June 2012 with over 100 participating PTs and subsequently over 800 views of the recorded session. It has also been presented at national and international conferences. Uptake : Regarding toolkit awareness, 81% said they were aware of the ATT, the majority learned about the ATT through PABC email/website (95%).…”

“…Five studies documented staff awareness of the toolkit and whether the distributed toolkit had been reviewed by eligible users; the studies with numerical results reported high, but not perfect review rates (81–86%) [13, 29, 56, 62, 68]. Two studies reported on the proportion of eligible participating sites that adopted the toolkit; results ranged from 53 to 98% [14, 19].…”

“…Reported satisfaction with the toolkit was generally high. One study reported that 50% of respondents found the toolkit information “some or very much helpful” [32], another reported 75% of respondents found the toolkit “extremely or very helpful” [15], one study reported ratings of “being helpful to staff” that ranged between 73 and 92% [33], one study documented that clinicians were “extremely satisfied or satisfied” in 11/11 discussions [70], in one study 86% of respondents agreed that the toolkit was helpful in clinical decision-making [62], and another study reported that 85% of staff who had read the toolkit found it helpful [29]. One study reported that most staff at three out of four sites believed the toolkit improved efficiency for adult vaccinations [51], one study found that all participants were “very satisfied or satisfied” with the overall usefulness of the toolkit [17], and one highlighted that the toolkit enabled comprehensive disease management and improved overall patient care [43].…”

“…One study reported a wide range of perceived usefulness across components (cost calculator 10%, patient health questionnaire 68%) [31], one study reported that all participants were satisfied with the algorithms while only 83% were satisfied with the included office strategies to improve screening [17], one indicated that the provided frameworks for implementation were helpful and that the major success element was alcohol hand rubs [26], and one study reported on videos as the most positively rated component among individual tools [49]. Four studies assessed how to improve the toolkit or which components were missing [31, 39, 62, 67].…”

Does Every Patient Require Imaging after Cervical Spine Trauma? A Knowledge Translation Project to Support Evidence-Informed Practice for Physiotherapists

“…Interestingly, however, the effect of a similar tool kit facilitated by the PT KB, the Achilles Tendinopathy Toolkit, 44 on user-reported clinical practice, has been evaluated and published, 45 revealing that those who reported familiarity with the tool kit were twice as likely to select evidence-informed interventions for clinical vignettes similar in nature to those used in the survey for the development of the C-Spine Rule Toolkit. Formal evaluation of the impact of tool kits remains a ''holy grail'' in KT evaluation-indeed, Barac and colleagues recently performed a scoping review of tool kits in health care and found that only 31 of the 89 tool kits reviewed had been evaluated in any way.…”