Enhancing accuracy and efficiency in upper extremity disability assessments: development and testing of a desktop...

Area of Science:

• Orthopedics
• Medical Informatics
• Rehabilitation Medicine

Background:

• Accurate disability assessment is crucial for patient care and resource allocation.
• Current methods for musculoskeletal disability evaluations can be time-consuming.
• Standardizing assessment procedures enhances reliability and consistency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To validate a novel software application designed to streamline disability assessments.
• To evaluate the efficiency and accuracy of an app-assisted method for upper extremity musculoskeletal evaluations.
• To compare a new software tool against traditional manual assessment techniques.

Main Methods:

• A software application developed in Visual Basic (.NET) was utilized.
• Archive data from 50 patients with upper extremity musculoskeletal conditions were analyzed.
• Statistical analyses, including Shapiro–Wilk and Independent t-test/Mann–Whitney U-tests, were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics.

Main Results:

• The app-assisted method was significantly faster, saving an average of 328.3 seconds per assessment.
• The average rating difference between the app and manual methods was minimal (0.40 points, 0.92%) and not statistically significant (P=.931).
• The software demonstrated comparable accuracy to manual assessment methods.

Conclusions:

• The developed software application is an efficient tool for physicians conducting musculoskeletal disability assessments.
• The application reduces evaluation time by approximately 5 minutes while maintaining assessment accuracy.
• This tool can be beneficial in clinical settings for improving the disability assessment process.