Improving the process of evaluating a home for wheelchair access
Site Assessment
5 min read
Challenge
Confirming durable medical equipment will fit in a patient’s home
The Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Program at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City is world renown. People come from all over the world to participate in the state of the art rehabilitation program offered at Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai’s vision is to provide the best state of the art treatments for spinal cord injury and to help persons with spinal cord injury reach their full potential.
People who sustain catastrophic spinal cord injuries undergo intensive therapy daily in order to reach their maximal potential. Often in order to reach their maximal potential and independence, some people require durable medical equipment which can include things such as power wheelchairs, commodes, and shower chairs.
This equipment can be expensive, however, and if it is ordered and does not fit in the environment for which it is intended to be used, this creates a serious problem for both patients and clinicians.
Solution
Using mobile floor plans to evaluate patient homes before ordering equipment
The clinicians caring for persons with spinal cord injury at Mount Sinai started to look at various mobile applications that would create a blueprint of a home, and of all the ones that they looked at, magicplan was thought to be the best.
They then applied to the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation for support to test use of magicplan for evaluating patients’ homes for potential inclusion of durable medical equipment that will fit, and began a fruitful collaboration with magicplan to do just that.
First, the clinicians at Mount Sinai created a “Durable Medical Equipment” database of different types of wheelchairs, commodes, and other items that was incorporated into magicplan. These appeared as accurately scaled avatars within the application.
They also created a video to teach anyone how to create an informative floor plan and how to use it to evaluate whether chosen durable medical equipment will fit within a home before the equipment is ordered and delivered.
To perform a home evaluation, an iPad with the magicplan app was provided to a patient’s family member, who used it to create a floor plan of the home. The completed plan was then returned to the clinician therapist, who inserted the appropriate equipment avatars into the floor plan to complete the evaluation.
The entire development and testing process took three years.
Results
More confident equipment decisions and fewer ordering issues
Whenever clinicians at the Spinal Cord Injury Program at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City want to order durable medical equipment and there is any question at all whether the equipment will fit in the environment for which it is intended, magicplan is used to confirm virtually that it will fit.
They have found that most people can use magicplan to create a floorplan of the home. This helps clinicians make informed decisions before ordering expensive equipment and reduces the risk of equipment not fitting once delivered.
Outlook
Expanding this approach to other rehabilitation centers
The team at Mount Sinai hopes that other rehabilitation centers will adopt magicplan to ensure that the equipment they order is most appropriate for their patients.
If someone has a disability and needs durable medical equipment such as a wheelchair or a commode, he or she can perform a home evaluation using magicplan by following a few simple steps. These steps are outlined in the help pages and knowledge base on the magicplan website under “home evaluation” or “DME.”
