The Value of Rehabilitation Interventions --Integrating Evidence, Clinical Expertise, Critical Assessment, and Patient Needs: A Conference Report

Abstract

In order to understand issues related to value, outcomes, and cost-effectiveness of rehabilitation interventions, and to explore how scientific evidence, clinical expertise, and patient needs can be integrated, the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Developing Optimal Strategies in Exercise and Survival Skills to Increase Health and Function held a State of the Science (SOS) Symposium on “ The Value of Rehabilitation Interventions” at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago in 2017. In this conference, the perspectives of 35 invited experts, including people with disabilities, professionals, and consumers, explored the topic of “value” of rehabilitation interventions and discussed their perspectives on the means to integrate best scientific evidence with clinical expertise and patient preferences. This Symposium also resulted in the production of several multifaceted manuscripts providing perspectives on the topic of value and how to use evidence to best determine and demonstrate it. These papers comprise this Supplement. The present paper introduces the key concepts of value, evidence, and knowledge translation, in an effort to provide a context for the papers of the Supplement.