Effect of daily use of electronic checklist on physical rehabilitation consultations in critically ill patients

Rationale In intensive care unit (ICU) practice, great emphasis is placed on the functional stabilization of the major organ systems, sometimes at the expense of physical rehabilitation. Checklists have shown to be an effective tool for standardizing care models. Our aim was to the study the effect of the use of an electronic checklist on occupational therapy/physical therapy (OT–PT) consults in critically ill patients. Methods A retrospective observational study of all adults admitted for the first time in an academic medical ICU in year 2014 was conducted. The patient demographics, outcomes, checklist use, and physical therapy consults were collected from Electronic Medical Records (EMR). Results A total of 2399 unique patients were admitted to the medical ICU, 55% were male and median (IQR) age was 65 (52–77) years. A total of 17% of patients received OT–PT consults among patients with checklist use (N = 1897), and among non-checklist user (N = 502), it was 7.6%. The total time of OT–PT administered in the ICU was 48 vs 31 min, p = 0.08.The patients who received the daily electronic checklist had high medical acuity but had lower ICU mortality. Hospital mortality was found to be no different. Conclusions The use of the electronic checklist in the ICU was associated with increased number of the OT–PT consults.