The American Physical Therapy Association's Top Five Choosing Wisely Recommendations
- N.T. White, PT, DPT, OCS, Clinical Practice and Research Department, American Physical Therapy Association, 1111 N Fairfax St, Alexandria, VA 22314 (USA).
- A. Delitto, PT, PhD, FAPTA, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
- T.J. Manal, PT, PhD, Physical Therapy Department, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware.
- S. Miller, BS, Clinical Practice and Research Department, American Physical Therapy Association.
- Address all correspondence to Dr White at: nancywhite{at}apta.org.
Improving health care in our country requires simultaneous pursuit of 3 aims: improving the effectiveness of care, improving the health of our population, and reducing the per capita costs of health care.1 As our nation focuses on ways to achieve this triple aim, the unwarranted overuse of health care resources is a significant concern. The continuing rise in health care costs, estimated at $2.8 trillion or 17.2% of gross domestic product in 2012, puts financial pressure on our national economy. Consequently, individuals are burdened by rising insurance premiums, deductibles, and copayments, often in addition to lost wage increases due to rising costs of premiums incurred by employers.2 Proponents of the triple aim have suggested there is ample capacity in our current health care system to achieve these goals by reducing unnecessary tests, treatments, and procedures.1 In fact, the Institute of Medicine estimates that in 2009 alone more than $750 billion (or 1 in 3 dollars spent on health care) was spent on unnecessary medical tests, procedures, and missed prevention opportunities.3
Implementing strategies that reduce unnecessary tests and procedures becomes a challenge, particularly when considering that most of these tests and procedures are covered by insurance. The federal government and private payers have attempted to control health care expenditures and utilization by increasing the number and complexity of regulations and requirements that govern the provision of care. Although the intent may be to improve patient care, these frequently changing and increasingly intricate regulations have led to a burdensome practice environment, challenging the ability of clinicians and administrators to remain compliant. Additionally, attempts to control utilization and costs have led to a significant increase in audits and investigations.4 Because of the complexity of the regulatory environment, even the most diligent health care professionals may find themselves the subject of costly investigations or audits.5
Enforcement through regulation has had limited success in reducing unnecessary tests and procedures or in improving the level or quality of care provided to patients.3 In 2011, the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Foundation attempted a different approach to addressing waste in health care by introducing Choosing Wisely, a campaign that aims to encourage dialogue among patients, health care professionals, and the community at large about the costs and benefits of health care.6 Choosing Wisely challenges health care professions to identify services (tests or interventions) within each specialty's clinical domain that are offered to patients in the absence of evidence demonstrating benefit or, in some cases, in the presence of evidence demonstrating disutility or harm.
Since the campaign's inception, more than 60 medical societies and 15 consumer groups have developed lists of “Five Things Providers and Patients Should Question,” and several societies have compiled multiple “Five Things” lists.6 The campaign has garnered significant national media attention.7 Consumer Reports has partnered with the campaign by developing easy-to-understand educational resources that health care providers can share with their patients about specific overused tests and treatments and by writing about the problem of unnecessary and overused health care in consumer publications.8
The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) is partnering with Choosing Wisely to become one of the first nonphysician organizations to identify specific evidence-based recommendations that encourage both patients and physical therapists to make wise decisions about the most appropriate care. Through the methodology outlined in this article, APTA has identified 5 services that are commonly performed despite evidence that the service is not effective and, in some cases, may be harmful. The purposes of this article are to identify APTA's 5 Choosing Wisely recommendations, to describe the process by which APTA's list was developed, and to identify strategies for dissemination of this information to physical therapists, patients, and the broader health care community.
Method
The ABIM Foundation allows specialty societies to independently create their lists using their own methodology, provided that items meet specific Choosing Wisely selection criteria: the service is commonly performed; there is strong evidence that demonstrates that the service offers no benefit to most patients and, in some circumstances, may be harmful; the service, in aggregate, is expensive; use of the service is within the specialty's purview and control; and the process for developing the list is transparent and available to the public upon request.
Formation of Staff Team
An APTA staff team was formed to manage the project. Team members included 2 physical therapists in the department of clinical practice and research, a research librarian, a survey specialist, and a project manager. Other APTA staff members were identified as consultants to the staff team because of their knowledge of specific content such as health policy, finance, communications, and evidence-based resources (Appendix 1).
Establishment of a Work Group
Eleven APTA members experienced in evidence-based practice from a variety of physical therapy clinical specialties and practice settings were selected by APTA to serve as members of a Choosing Wisely Work Group (Work Group) to assist in the development of the list (Appendix 2). APTA uses staff-selected work groups such as this one, which are composed of APTA members chosen by staff for specific roles, to assist staff in decision making on emerging issues and initiatives.
The Work Group chair and vice-chair were selected first based on their leadership skills, consensus-building experience, and expertise in clinical research in physical therapy. The APTA staff team consulted with the chair and vice-chair to select the other 9 members of the Work Group, each of whom represented an area of clinical practice focus or a practice setting that had been identified by the chair and vice-chair (Tab. 1). Criteria for selection included clinical experience and familiarity with research and practice in the identified content areas.
Areas of Clinical Practice Focus Represented on Work Group
Agreement on Process for List Development
The staff team held an initial meeting with the Work Group to develop and agree upon the process and time line for list development (Figure). After the initial meeting, a description of the process along with a list of Work Group members was posted to APTA's website and shared with APTA members via e-mail communication.
Methodology flowchart and time line.
Call for Submissions
All of APTA's more than 88,000 members were invited to submit items for consideration. Submission requests were made broadly through APTA's website and social media communications. To encourage submissions, APTA sent invitations by e-mail to clinical specialists certified by the American Board of Physical Therapy Specialties, residency and fellowship programs accredited by the American Board of Physical Therapy Residency and Fellowship Education, members involved with development of clinical practice guidelines, and APTA section leadership. Members were asked to submit thoughtful and relevant items for consideration and to include a justification statement and supporting references with each submission. Guidance for submissions and sample phrasing such as “Don't use ___ (service) for ___ (condition/patient) when ___” were included in the call for submissions. One hundred seventy-eight submissions were received during the 2-week submission period. Because members provided submissions through an online portal that did not require that the individuals identify themselves, a description of the characteristics of those members who submitted recommendations is not available.
List Refinement and Review of Literature
The Work Group used a modified Delphi process that included 6 rounds of voting (Tab. 2) to review and rank the submissions based on the Choosing Wisely criteria.
Work Group Voting Rounds
Round 1
The purpose of round 1 was to reduce the number of submissions under consideration through elimination of items that did not meet the following criteria: (1) the item must be a test or intervention used in physical therapist practice, (2) the use of the identified test or intervention must be within the purview of physical therapists, and (3) the use of the identified test or intervention should be questioned based on current evidence. For ease of voting, the 178 submissions were categorized by the staff team into 18 general topic groups. Work Group members were instructed to vote to eliminate items that did not meet all of the identified criteria. By prior agreement, submissions that received 6 or more elimination votes were removed from further consideration.
An example of a submission that was eliminated was one that encouraged physical therapists to avoid conflicts of interest in providing care to patients. Because this submission did not identify a specific test or intervention to avoid, it did not meet the inclusion criteria. Other submissions were eliminated because they recommended services that should be provided, not services that should be questioned. Because Choosing Wisely has a goal of reducing unnecessary care, the ABIM Foundation requires that lists consist of tests or interventions that should be avoided and that items on the lists be written in the negative using language such as “don't do” or “avoid.” For example, a recommendation for early intervention by physical therapists for patients with low back pain did not meet the criteria for selection.
Other submissions were eliminated during the first round because the tests or interventions were not within the domain or control of physical therapists. Examples include recommendations for avoiding surgery or use of prescription medications. The Work Group was unsure if the continuous passive motion (CPM) recommendation met the Choosing Wisely criteria. After consultation with the ABIM Foundation, the Work Group decided to retain the recommendation.
Eighty-six items were eliminated during the first round of voting, leaving 92 items remaining in the pool. A list of all submissions and the number of elimination votes that each received are included in eAppendix 1.
Round 2
The purpose of round 2 was to review the submissions that received between 1 and 5 elimination votes in round 1 and to identify any that warranted continued consideration. Work Group members were instructed to indicate the items they wanted to retain for consideration by voting either to “keep” or to “keep if reworded” and were asked to provide rewording suggestions to improve adherence to the submission criteria when appropriate. One vote to “keep” or “keep if reworded” was necessary for an item to advance to round 3. Although only 2 items were eliminated in round 2, numerous suggestions were offered for rewording the remaining submissions. The ranking of the submissions after tabulation of the round 2 voting is included in eAppendix 2.
Round 3
The purpose of round 3 was to continue to reduce the number of items under consideration by identifying the top 10 to 12 submissions for which a literature search would be conducted. For this survey, Work Group members were asked to select up to 20 submissions that best met the Choosing Wisely criteria. The submissions were ranked based on the number of votes that each received. The ranking of the submissions after tabulation of the round 3 voting is included in eAppendix 3. The Work Group forwarded the 11 highest ranked items to the research librarian on the staff team for a comprehensive literature search.
Round 4
The purpose of round 4 was to collect information on the frequency, cost, safety, and overall impact of the 11 items under consideration. The staff team worked to obtain publicly available data on the frequency of utilization of the treatments identified in the 11 remaining recommendations. Utilization data from commercial payers was not publicly available. Limited utilization data for certain procedures and interventions was available for consideration by the Work Group through the American Medical Association/Specialty Society Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC) webpage.
Although the RUC data helped to inform the list development process, other factors were more influential in the decision making during round 4. For example, Work Group members believed that although the use of whirlpool for wound management appears to have decreased in recent years in response to evidence, the high risk of infection and cross-contamination to patients warranted the inclusion of the recommendation on APTA's list. For the recommendation related to mobility and ambulation following diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis (DVT), the Work Group members noted that most large academic medical centers now include ambulation and mobility interventions for patients with DVT but that the practice of recommending bed rest for these patients is still common in rural areas and smaller community hospitals. Work Group members argued that these variations in practice justified the recommendation due to the risk of harm rather than frequency of utilization alone.
Literature Search
A literature search was conducted for each of the top 11 recommendations. The overall aim of each literature search was to retrieve clinical practice guidelines, research articles (human studies published in English only), or literature reviews published in the past 10 years (2004–2014) from PubMed and other databases accessible to APTA staff. However, it was necessary to tailor the specific criteria for each search to the individual recommendation. For example, the time frame of a search was shortened to 5 years if a sufficient number of articles were located, the time frame was expanded if seminal research for a recommendation was published prior to 2004, case series and case reports were included if warranted by the topic, and databases other than PubMed were selected based on the subject matter of the recommendation. Table 3 provides search parameters for each recommendation. Citations suggested by members during the initial call for submissions also were added to the search results regardless of publication year or level of evidence.
Literature Search Parameters
For this round, each of the 11 items was assigned to 2 Work Group members based, to the extent possible, on the content expertise of each member. Each pair of Work Group members provided data, information, and expert opinion on the frequency of use, cost, safety, and overall impact of the assigned items. The entire Work Group examined the posted results of each search but did not formally appraise or grade each article. Members were asked to consider all literature reviews but to carefully review and comment on the reviews of the specific recommendations that had been previously assigned to them during round 4.
Round 5
The purposes of round 5 were to remove items from consideration that were not supported by the evidence provided by the literature searches and to rank the remaining items. Work Group members were asked to select their top 5 items and to vote to remove any items that they believed did not meet the Choosing Wisely criteria based on the literature and utilization reviews. A majority of the Work Group members voted to eliminate 2 of the 11 recommendations because of a lack of evidence to support their inclusion on the list. A tabulation of responses and comments from round 5 is available in eAppendix 4.
Following the tabulation of round 5, the staff team consulted with the chair, vice-chair, and Work Group members who were content experts for the remaining items to finalize the wording of the recommendations and the justification statements to accompany them in future communications about APTA's Choosing Wisely list.
Round 6
The purpose of round 6 was to allow the Work Group to approve the final wording of the recommendations and justification statements. Work Group members were asked to review each recommendation, indicate whether they approved the wording, and make suggestions for changes if necessary. A majority of Work Group members agreed to the wording of the 9 recommendations and justification statements. Final revisions to the wording were made in consultation with the chair and vice-chair based on the recommendations and were made available to the Work Group for review and comment.
Member Survey
The list of 9 finalist recommendations, all of which the Work Group had agreed met the Choosing Wisely criteria, was sent in the form of an electronic survey to 71,828 APTA members. The survey included the 9 recommendations along with justification statements and selected citations for each. All members except those who had previously opted out of APTA surveys received the survey. In an effort to ensure that all members were allowed to vote in the final survey, an additional open link was provided to those members who were unable to access their survey invitation. Members were asked to select up to 5 items for inclusion on APTA's list. Reminders were sent through e-mail and APTA's social media and website communications.
A total of 2,433 member responses were received during the 8-day survey period. The top 5 items were identified. The response represents 3.39% of APTA members who were surveyed, 2.76% of all of the approximately 88,000 APTA members, and approximately 0.9% of physical therapist and physical therapist assistant licensees. Table 4 provides the list of 9 finalist recommendations and a tabulation of member responses. An analysis of membership characteristics of those who responded to all of the member surveys was not conducted because the respondents were not asked to provide demographic information.
Nine Recommendations Provided by Survey to Membership and Votes Received by Each (N=2,433)
APTA Board of Directors Approval
The APTA Board of Directors reviewed the recommendations and approved the 5 items that received the most votes from the member survey.
ABIM Foundation Approval
The ABIM Foundation reviews all lists developed by the Choosing Wisely partners to ensure that the recommendations meet their established criteria. As part of this review process, APTA was asked to provide the name of a physical therapist to assist ABIM in reviewing APTA's list. The ABIM Foundation asked that this individual be someone who was respected in the profession, not involved in APTA's list development, and not an elected leader of APTA. Staff consulted with the chair, vice-chair, and senior APTA staff and provided the name of a qualified APTA member to partner with an ABIM reviewer.
The ABIM Foundation provided APTA with the comments from the reviewers. In consultation with the Work Group chair, vice-chair, and content experts, the staff team made final edits to the recommendations and provided the list to the Work Group for final review. Integration of the suggestions did not fundamentally change the recommendations. All available Work Group members approved the final list. APTA's Board of Directors was informed of the revisions, and the final edited list was submitted to ABIM (Tab. 5).
Five Things Physical Therapists and Patients Should Question
Results
Recommendation: Don't use passive physical agents except when necessary to facilitate participation in an active treatment program.
There is limited evidence for use of passive physical agents to obtain clinically important outcomes for musculoskeletal conditions. A carefully designed active treatment plan has a greater impact on pain, mobility, function, and quality of life. Although there is some evidence of short-term pain relief for certain physical agents, the addition of passive physical agents should be supported by evidence and used to facilitate an active treatment program. There is emerging evidence that passive physical agents can harm patients by communicating to them that passive, instead of active, management strategies are advisable, thus exacerbating fears and anxiety that many patients have about being physically active when in pain, which can prolong recovery, increase costs, and increase the risk of exposure to invasive and costly interventions such as injections or surgery.9–15
Recommendation: Don't prescribe underdosed strength training programs for older adults. Instead, match the frequency, intensity, and duration of exercise to the individual's abilities and goals.
Improved strength in older adults is associated with improved health, quality of life, and functional capacity and with a reduced risk of falls. Older adults are often prescribed low-dose exercise and physical activity that are physiologically inadequate to cause gains in muscle strength. Failure to establish accurate strength baselines limits the accuracy of the strength training dosage and progression and thus limits the benefits of the training. A carefully developed strength training program may have significant health benefits for older adults.16–20
Recommendation: Don't recommend bed rest following diagnosis of acute DVT after the initiation of anticoagulation therapy unless significant medical concerns are present.
Given the clinical benefits of early ambulation and activity and the lack of evidence indicating harmful effects, early ambulation and activity are recommended for patients with diagnosis of acute DVT following achievement of anticoagulation goals unless there are overriding medical indications. Patients can be harmed by prolonged bed rest that is not medically necessary.21–24
Recommendation: Don't use CPM machines for the postoperative management of patients following uncomplicated total knee replacement.
Continuous passive motion treatment does not lead to clinically important effects on short-term or long-term knee extension, long-term knee flexion, long-term function, pain, and quality of life in patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty (TKA). With rehabilitation protocols now supporting early mobilization, the use of CPM following uncomplicated TKA should be questioned unless medical or surgical complications exist that limit or contraindicate rehabilitation protocols that foster early mobilization. The cost, inconvenience, and risk of prolonged bed rest with CPM should be weighed carefully against its limited benefit.25–29
Recommendation: Don't use whirlpool for wound management.
Whirlpools are a nonselective form of mechanical debridement. Utilizing whirlpool to treat wounds predisposes the patient to risks of bacterial cross-contamination, damage to fragile tissue from high turbine forces, and complications in extremity edema when arms and legs are treated in a dependent position in warm water. Other, more selective forms of hydrotherapy should be utilized, such as directed wound irrigation or a pulsed lavage with suction.30–34
Plan for Review and Revision of List
As a partner in Choosing Wisely, APTA has a responsibility to update its list on a regular basis to ensure that the recommendations reflect the best and most current evidence. APTA will conduct a thorough review of its Choosing Wisely recommendations and justifications statements every 2 years. A literature review will be conducted, and member experts will be consulted to consider whether changes to the list are necessary. If emerging evidence is of sufficient strength to alter conclusions on specific items, these items will be updated, amended, or withdrawn. APTA will communicate any changes to the ABIM Foundation.
Although there are no formal plans for APTA to develop additional Choosing Wisely lists, it is likely that this will be explored. Decisions to develop additional lists will be made after an evaluation of this initiative and its potential to influence the profession, patients, and society. APTA sections may want to consider developing lists either in collaboration with APTA or independently.
Discussion
APTA's list of “Five Things Physical Therapists and Patients Should Question” meets the objectives and criteria of the Choosing Wisely campaign and was developed using a methodology that was rigorous, transparent, reproducible, and inclusive. Choosing Wisely is a campaign to reduce waste and promote professionalism in health care. The campaign reflects the fundamental principles set forth in 2001 by the ABIM Foundation in Medical Professionalism in the New Millennium: A Physician Charter,35 which include primacy of patient welfare, patient autonomy, and social justice. Professionalism is the basis of the health care professional's commitment to society and demands placing the patient's needs first and foremost, establishing and maintaining standards of competence and integrity, and providing expert advice to improve the health of society.35 Physical therapists joining the ranks of other medical professionals as participants in Choosing Wisely is a reflection of a desire to self-govern practice based on best available evidence and to provide care that is in the best interest of the patient.
APTA's core values, Code of Ethics, and Standards of Practice are all consistent with the Choosing Wisely campaign's goal of promoting professionalism in practice.36 Professionalism is a key element of APTA's new vision statement for the profession: “Transform society by optimizing movement to improve the human experience.”37 The Choosing Wisely initiative adds to the growing list of resources that physical therapists can point to for education and information on how professional decision making occurs in daily practice, including guidance on functional outcome measurement and access to clinical practice guidelines and evidence-based clinical summaries.38
In contrast to the regulatory efforts aimed at managing health care costs and utilization, Choosing Wisely takes an alternative approach. In addition to encouraging evidence-based practice, Choosing Wisely supports a collaborative relationship and joint decision making between the patient and the clinician. Regulation, on the other hand, is typically one-sided and uses threats of nonpayment or penalty to force compliance by health care professionals. Although it is not known whether Choosing Wisely will be more effective than regulations in changing health care utilization, there is evidence to suggest that joint decision making is an important component in facilitating practitioner behavior change.35,39
APTA's list will be integrated into the association's “Integrity in Practice” campaign with a full communication plan developed to encourage awareness and broad adoption throughout the profession. Although there will be a focus on the specific recommendations on APTA's list, the broader goal will be to encourage discussions about social responsibility, wise use of resources, evidence-based practice, and—most importantly—the added value of these types of initiatives in educating and reflecting practice that provides the best and most appropriate care for patients.
A key concept of Choosing Wisely is the inclusion of patients in decision making about care that is truly necessary. APTA has plans to disseminate information about its list to the public. Through partnership with Consumer Reports, APTA will develop patient-friendly educational materials targeted specifically to consumers. APTA will provide information for consumers on how to select a physical therapist and how to participate in decisions about the type of care that is most valuable. Resources will be available for members to distribute to patients in waiting rooms, community health events, and through Web and social media and will be posted on APTA's consumer website, Move Forward. Talking points will be provided to members to facilitate conversations with patients about wise use of health care resources. Press releases will be sent to media outlets in health policy, health administration, and the popular press. Informational materials will be developed in lay language for APTA's advocacy staff to distribute to legislators and health policy makers.
Several questions and challenges arose during the process of list development. One question was whether the recommendations related to the use of CPM or to activity limitation following diagnosis of DVT were within the purview and control of physical therapists. Representatives at the ABIM Foundation who were consulted about this question encouraged APTA to keep the items on the list provided they met the other criteria. Physical therapist practice has similarities with specialties such as radiology that regularly implement tests and interventions that have been recommended by others. Physical therapists frequently serve as members of interprofessional health care teams that have collective responsibility for informing health care decisions for patients such as those who have undergone total knee replacements. As key members of these teams, physical therapists have a responsibility to advocate to other health care professionals for care decisions that are based on the best evidence and result in the best patient outcomes.
Some APTA members questioned the requirement that the recommendations be written in the negative. Because Choosing Wisely focuses on eliminating unnecessary, unsafe, or wasteful care, the campaign is designed to identify specific tests and procedures that should not be used. To reflect this focus, items are phrased as “don'ts.” As a participant in Choosing Wisely, APTA agreed to adopt the processes established by the campaign.
There are several limitations to the development of a list such as this, most of which relate to a lack of data. There are limited data on the utilization or aggregate costs of many tests, procedures, and interventions in physical therapy, especially for specific diagnoses, identified patient populations, and specific practice settings. As a result, the process relied on the knowledge and expertise of the Work Group members to provide information on utilization and impact. Although efforts were made to have representation on the Work Group from across the scope of physical therapist practice, it was not reasonable to attempt to include representation from all specialty and subspecialty areas of practice.
Additionally, there are insufficient data to support or refute certain practices. The physical therapy literature also lacks basic health services studies to help explain what drives overutilization and which treatments are most effective, and cost-effective, for specific conditions. Some physical therapists will not find a recommendation directly in their practice area due to the diversity of the scope of physical therapist practice and the requirement by Choosing Wisely that the list be limited to 5 items. Although this is reflective of our broad scope of influence in patient care, it may limit the relevance of this initiative to some physical therapists. Another limitation is the small proportion of the physical therapy community and APTA members who participated in the process. Although more than 2,500 APTA members participated in some way in the creation of APTA's Choosing Wisely list, the process could be improved by higher levels of member involvement.
APTA's Choosing Wisely campaign is intended to start a conversation about the need for all professionals to provide care that supports the triple aim of effective care, improved patient health, and reduced costs. APTA's recommendations are not intended to influence payment decisions or to eliminate the use of certain interventions under all circumstances but rather to give synthesized information to physical therapists and patients on which to frame meaningful discussions about the most appropriate care for a given patient service. Some physical therapists may be hesitant to embrace Choosing Wisely because of fear of losing autonomy and independent clinical decision making. A review of APTA's list of recommendations should help allay this concern. When literature was insufficient to draw conclusions, statements were rejected by the Work Group.
The identification of these commonly performed interventions, summarized and linked directly with synthesis of the available evidence, creates a referenced statement on best practice. This statement has the ability to inform clinicians and influence their choices as well as educate other health care providers and patients in the process. The Choosing Wisely campaign provides relevant information to support clinical decision making by physical therapists that is based on evidence and is in the best interest of each patient. If physical therapists, who best understand the clinical evidence, environment, and needs of our patients, do not define overuse and unnecessary care, others without the necessary perspective or patient input will do this for us.
Conclusion
APTA joins more than 60 medical specialty societies in the ABIM Foundation's Choosing Wisely campaign by developing its list of “Five Things Physical Therapists and Patients Should Question.” The list reflects an inclusive process consisting of an invitation to all APTA members to submit recommendations for consideration, a review and ranking of the submitted recommendations based on the Choosing Wisely criteria by an 11-member expert work group, a survey to all APTA members for final selection and ranking of the recommendations, approval of the list by the APTA Board of Directors, and submission of the recommendations to the ABIM Foundation for final review and approval. APTA has a plan to communicate its Choosing Wisely recommendations to physical therapists, other health care professionals, health policy stakeholders, and patients in order to foster conversations about the most beneficial care for specific conditions. Adoption of APTA's Choosing Wisely recommendations is encouraged.
Appendix 1.
American Physical Therapy Association Staff Team
Appendix 2.
Choosing Wisely Member Work Group
Footnotes
Dr White and Ms Miller provided concept/idea/research design and project management. Dr White, Dr Delitto, and Dr Manal provided writing. Dr Manal and Ms Miller provided data collection. Dr Delitto, Dr Manal, and Ms Miller provided data analysis. Dr Delitto and Dr Manal provided consultation (including review of the manuscript before submission).
Megan Smith, MLS, Research Specialist, and Gini Blodgett Birchett, MSLS, Lead Information Resources Specialist, provided research librarian services throughout the project and during the preparation of the manuscript. Anita Bemis-Dougherty, PT, DPT, MPA, and Gayle Lee provided editorial support and content expertise throughout the project and during the preparation of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the concept, design, and preparation of the manuscript. All Work Group members contributed to the development and implementation of the methodology.
The authors have submitted a proposal for a presentation at the American Physical Therapy Association's Combined Sections Meeting and NEXT conference in 2015.
- Received June 30, 2014.
- Accepted September 8, 2014.
- © 2015 American Physical Therapy Association