Creating OPAs for Interdisciplinary Team Leadership of the Inpatient Rehabilitation Team

Context: Team leadership is an important part of the field of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) as the needs of patients with impairments require an interdisciplinary rehabilitation team to successfully address. Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) are units of work that are deemed necessary to the field and that trainees need to become competent in. PM&R has 19 EPAs of which EPA # 15 is “leading and interdisciplinary rehab team and crafting an interdisciplinary rehab plan.” In order to use EPAs for education or assessment, they need to be deconstructed into smaller units called observable practice activities (OPAs). There are not any existing OPAs for EPA # 15 in PM&R. The primary aim of this study was to create OPAs for EPA # 15, specific to the inpatient rehabilitation setting. Methods: A Delphi panel of 14 physiatrists who predominantly practice in the inpatient rehabilitation setting was utilized to gain consensus on creating OPAs for EPA # 15. Results: 3 OPAs for each of the 7 crucial inpatient rehabilitation tasks emerged after two rounds and a third round was used to modify the verbiage of the OPAs. Conclusions: The OPAs for EPA # 15 can be used for goal setting, education and assessment of P&R trainees in the inpatient rehabilitation setting.