Inpatient stroke rehabilitation in Ontario: are dedicated units better?

The superiority of dedicated stroke rehabilitation over generalized rehabilitation services has been suggested by the literature; however, these models of service delivery have not been evaluated in terms of their relative effectiveness in situ.

A comparison of the process indicators associated with these two models of service provision was undertaken within the Ontario healthcare system.

All adults admitted with a diagnosis of stroke for inpatient rehabilitation in Ontario, Canada during the years 2006-2008 were identified from the National Rehabilitation Reporting System database. Each of the admitting institutions was classified as providing rehabilitation services on either a stroke dedicated or nondedicated unit. A dedicated unit was identified by the presence of a collection of geographically distinct, stroke-dedicated beds and dedicated therapists. Selected process indicators from the National Rehabilitation Reporting System database were compared between the two facility types.

Sixty-seven facilities provided stroke rehabilitation services to 6709 adult stroke patients during the years 2006-2008. Of the total number of patients who entered inpatient rehabilitation, 1725 (25·7%) received care in eight facilities that met basic criteria for a dedicated stroke rehabilitation unit. On average, these patients took significantly longer to arrive for inpatient rehabilitation (37·2 ± 155·5 vs. 22·8 ± 95·0 days, P < 0·001), were admitted with higher Functional Independence Measure scores (77·5 ± 22·5 vs. 74·8 ± 24·5, P < 0·001), had significantly longer lengths of stay (42·1 ± 25·9 vs. 35·4 ± 27·2 days, P < 0·001), and demonstrated significantly lower Functional Independence Measure efficiency scores (0·62 ± 0·47 vs. 0·88 ± 1·03, P > 0·001) compared with patients who were admitted to nondedicated units. The proportion of patients admitted to a dedicated unit and subsequently discharged home was similar to that of patients discharged from nondedicated units (70·5% vs. 68·8%, P = 0·206).

In Ontario, patients admitted to dedicated stroke rehabilitation units fared no better on commonly-used process metrics compared with patients admitted to nondedicated rehabilitation units.