Performance-based and patient-reported outcome measures for custom ankle-foot orthosis users: reliability, validity, and sensitivity evidence.

Purpose: To evaluate the psychometric properties of performance and patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) for custom ankle-foot orthosis (AFOs) users.

Materials And Methods: Current AFO users completed two assessments one week apart; new AFO users completed an assessment before device delivery and at one- and two-months post-delivery.

Results: Seventy current and 31 new users consented and provided data.

Participatory Modeling for High Complexity, Multi-System Issues: Challenges and Recommendations for Balancing Qualitative Understanding and Quantitative Questions.

Community stakeholder participation can be incredibly valuable for the qualitative model development process. However, modelers often encounter challenges for participatory modeling projects focusing on high-complexity, synergistic interactions between multiple issues, systems, and granularity. The diverse stakeholder perspectives and volumes of information necessary for developing such models can yield qualitative models that are difficult to translate into quantitative simulation or clear insight for informed decision-making.

Nonresponse Bias on Inpatient Rehabilitation Hospitals' Experience of Care Quality Measure Scores.

Objective: To describe the magnitude of nonresponse bias on inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) experience of care survey data in patients with neurologic disorders.

Design: Cohort study of patients at 2 IRFs. Patients reported experience of care via an IRF-administered survey as part of routine operations approximately 2 weeks after discharge.

Palliative Care Initiated in the Emergency Department: A Cluster Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: The emergency department (ED) offers an opportunity to initiate palliative care for older adults with serious, life-limiting illness.

Objective: To assess the effect of a multicomponent intervention to initiate palliative care in the ED on hospital admission, subsequent health care use, and survival in older adults with serious, life-limiting illness.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Cluster randomized, stepped-wedge, clinical trial including patients aged 66 years or older who visited 1 of 29 EDs across the US between May 1, 2018, and December 31, 2022, had 12 months of prior Medicare enrollment, and a Gagne comorbidity score greater than 6, representing a risk of short-term mortality greater than 30%.

A descriptive examination of rurality in the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes Cohort: Implications, illustrations, and future directions.

Purpose: The Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Cohort has enrolled over 60,000 children to examine how early environmental factors (broadly defined) are associated with key child health outcomes. The ECHO Cohort may be well-positioned to contribute to our understanding of rural environments and contexts, which has implications for rural health disparities research. The present study examined the outcome of child obesity to not only illustrate the suitability of ECHO Cohort data for these purposes but also determine how various definitions of rural and urban populations impact the presentation of findings and their interpretation.