OT-opoly, the True North Edition

October was national occupational therapy month, and this year the OTs at Vancouver Coastal Health had plenty of reasons to celebrate their contributions to the organization.

The Richmond occupational therapists marked the occasion by enjoying a potluck lunch together and playing a board game called “OT-opoly—True North Edition”.  Participants landed on various squares that sent them forward or back depending on how they contributed to VCH’s True North goals.  Under the Surgical Services category for instance, ‘Started a surgical pre-hab group’ put the player ahead 5 spaces.  Under the Information Management category, ‘Suggested we continue with paper documentation indefinitely’ sent the player back 3 spaces!

Of note, there was one coveted space to land on. This space promised an automatic win for: ‘Circulated the journal article Higher Hospital Spending on Occupational Therapy is Associated With Lower Readmission Rates’.  Curious?  Here’s more.

As many OTs know and are proud of, medical policy researchers from Johns Hopkins University recently published the results of a study that examined the association between hospital spending for specific services and 30-day readmission rates for patients with heart failure, pneumonia and acute myocardial infarction.  The researchers concluded that occupational therapy was the only spending category where additional spending had a statistically significant association with lower readmission rates for all three medical conditions.*

We would definitely call that a win!

*Rogers, A.T., Bai, G., Lavin, R.A., Anderson, G.F. (2016). Higher hospital spending on occupational therapy is associated with lower readmission rates. Medical Care Research and Review, 2016, 1-19