Instruments to structure interdisciplinary team conferences in rehabilitation medicine: Added value of the Rehabilitation Activities Profile

Professionals in rehabilitation medicine meet periodically in team conferences. The main aim of these conferences is determination of a patient's present functional status, his or her prognosis and, above all, goal-setting and how these goals can be achieved. Communication during team conferences is often laborious. There are differences in professional language, a common viewpoint is mostly lacking, and professionals are inclined to report a great amount of detailed (disciplinary) information. Therefore written and oral communication must be comprehensible, relevant, and compact. This can be achieved by instruments that structure patient-oriented team conferences. Currently various instruments are in use. This article discusses the Patient Evaluation and Conference System, the Rehabilitation Information System/Information System for patients with spinal cord injury (RIS/DIS), and the Physical, Activities of daily living, Social, Psychological and Communication (SAMPC) profile. Besides these methods a new instrument is presented: the Rehabilitation Activities Profile (RAP) and report system (RAP-TEAM for short). The comparison shows that the RAP has added value over the other instruments. Because the RAP is oriented on disabilities, handicaps and perceived problems and has a two-level structure, the RAP can provide rehabilitation teams with comprehensible, relevant and compact information. RAP describes the consequences of a disease or disorder in concrete and manageable rehabilitation goals.