Can Physiotherapy Practice be Documented; Experiences and Challenges from The FYSIOPRIM project

Abstract

Background: There is insufficient information about physiotherapy in primary care regarding who the patients are, what kind of treatment they receive and their treatment outcome. Objective: Our objective was to implement a system of collecting detailed and robust data of patients seeking health care from physiotherapists in primary care. Methods: We describe and evaluate the implementation of an electronic system for patient data registration that was offered to all physiotherapists in the municipality of Trondheim, Norway. Results: Many physiotherapists wanted to participate in the project, but less than half managed to maintain registration throughout the project period. The physiotherapists found it hard to change their clinical practice, many reported insufficient user-friendliness of the system and lack of clinical benefit as the main reasons for not registering. The effects of various motivational initiatives were highly variable. Conclusion: Implementation of a new electronic system for patient data registration proved to be demanding. Our findings indicate that clinicians need to experience clinical benefits at an early stage of the process, and that such registrations must be rooted in regulations governing the care in order to succeed with implementation of systematic patient registrations.

Keywords

• electronic registration
• physiotherapy
• primary care