Implementing the Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System (RTSS) in Health Professions Education

Thursday, November 10, 2022

10:45 AM – 12:00 PM

Presenter(s)

Susan E. Fasoli, ScD, OTR/L

Professor, Occupational Therapy
MGH Institute of Health Professions
Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Slides
Susan H. Lin, ScD OTR/L FAOTA FACRM (she/her/hers)

Affiliate Faculty
Marymount University Center for Optimal Aging
Round Hill, Virginia, United States

Slides
Leanna W. Katz, OT, OTD, OTR (she/her/hers)

Lecturer
Boston University
Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Slides
Sue Ann Sisto, PT, MA, PhD, FACRM

Professor and Chair
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York, United States
Matthew Geddie, OTR, PhD.

Assistant Professor/Program Director
TTUHSC
Lubbock, Texas, United States

Non-presenting author(s)

Lyn S. Turkstra, PhD

Professor
School of Rehabilitation Science
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

The Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System (RTSS) is a systematic and theory-driven framework to describe clinical interventions in terms of their “treatment components”, comprised of treatment targets (outcomes), ingredients (clinician actions) and mechanisms of action (how/why a treatment is predicted to bring about change). The RTSS serves as a tool for health professionals to simplify complex clinical reasoning and to better link rehabilitative treatments to desired changes in functioning. Implementation of the RTSS in health professions education provides a common framework to promote clinical reasoning skills and facilitate communication among students, educators, and clinicians. This symposium will present ways in which the RTSS has been incorporated into academic programs for OT, PT, and SLP across the US and Canada, with the aim to graduate students able to utilize the RTSS as a foundational framework for clinical practice and critical appraisal of research evidence.

Learning Objectives:

Describe a framework for integrating the RTSS into interprofessional education to promote the development of students’ clinical reasoning skills and ability to examine and apply research evidence to clinical practice.
Understand how examples provided by faculty across disciplines may inform their own delivery of educational content to students across curricula.
Apply the RTSS framework to a typical course learning objective to guide course content and to evaluate whether the desired learning objective has been met.
Discuss potential benefits and outcomes of incorporating RTSS into rehabilitation curricula.