Rural health professionals' satisfaction with a rehabilitation mobile outreach program

Objective: To assess the extent to which rural physicians and allied health professionals are satisfied with consultation services provided by an inte rdisciplinary rehabilitation outreach team. Design: Descriptive survey. Setting: A rehabilitation outreach team that travels to 14 rural communitie s in eastern and northern Ontario, Canada. Subjects: Thirty-six rural physicians (response rate, 53.7%) and 62 allied health professionals (response rater 92.5%) involved in the care of patient s referred to the program. Main Outcome Measure: Consumer satisfaction questionnaire. Results: Most respondents (94.7%) indicated that they were satisfied with t he interdisciplinary consultation, with comparable rates of satisfaction re ported by physicians and allied health professionals. The highest satisfact ion ratings were given to items addressing the clarity of recommendations p rovided by team members and the quality of the team's interaction with pati ents. The lowest ratings were associated with the waiting time between visi ts. Of all the individual disciplines on the team, physiatry was rated as m ost important for rural consultations. However, in open-ended comments, res pondents indicated that the interdisciplinary aspect of the service was its most valued characteristic, whereas infrequent visits were the greatest dr awback. Conclusion: The interdisciplinary outreach approach to rehabilitation consu ltation receives high satisfaction ratings from rural health professionals who refer patients to the outreach team, which supports this model as a way to enhance rehabilitation services in rural communities. (C) 1999 by the A merican Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine and the American Academy of Phy sical Medicine and Rehabilitation.