Acute Care Occupational Therapy On Weekends?

[Guest guest]

A little background:

* 160 bed Acute Care hospital with one full-time and one on-call OT on

the weekdays, and one on-call OT on the weekends.

* When ordering therapies, most of our physicians write " PT/OT

Evaluate and Treat " . The implication is that, perhaps, there is an

overutilization of overall therapy services - weekends notwithstanding.

* Over the last year or so, our " on call " OT's have always been called

in on the weekends, especially if there are new Evals.

* Some are questioning the value(good or bad) to our patients,

hospital, and staff of calling in the OT's on the weekends -

especially if another clinician (such as a PT) determines that the OT

Eval order can wait until the weekday.

This post is to ask what other facilities are doing relative to OT

coverage on the weekends. You can see some of the above considerations

involved.

Thank you!

Ty Keeter DPT, MHA

Providence Health & Services