The Shirley Ryan AbilityLab announces the upcoming launch of Ability Quotient, described as a quality assessment tool designed to measure patients’ rehabilitation and recovery progress as a guide for doctors and insurers.

AbilityLab clinicians are already using the tool, and they’ll soon partner with at least five other organizations for beta testing, says CEO Dr Joanne Smith, in a news story from Modern Healthcare.

Here’s how Ability Quotient works, the story explains: Clinicians test patients in areas like cognition, balance and endurance. Algorithms for different patient populations highlight the measures that are most statistically important—from day one through discharge. The data tells clinicians where to focus if patients are falling behind in certain areas.

The more data that’s collected for each patient population, the better clinicians will be at setting benchmarks and predicting patient outcomes, Smith adds. Additionally, insurance companies could use the tool to reward quality care with higher reimbursement rates.

Once launched, Ability Quotient will be available for free.

“We don’t want to sell it—not because we’re not interested in reaping some benefit that would help our nonprofit mission,” Smith comments. “Rather, we feel the urgency is too great for this field to not have a real, viable outcome system.”

[Source: Modern Healthcare]