Malan Zhang, Yun Zhang, Yun Xiang, Ziling Lin, Wei Shen, Yingmin Wang, Liyin Wang, Jiani Yu, Tiebin Yan
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University,Hexian Memorial Affiliated Hospital of Southern Medical University, 510120 Guangzhou, China
DOI: 10.2340/16501977-2756

Objective: To develop a team approach to applying the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health Rehabilitation Set (ICF-RS) in clinical evaluation.
Design: A Delphi study.
Subjects: Experts from rehabilitation institutions in China including physicians, nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists.
Methods: A 2-round Delphi survey and expert panel discussion were used to generate the team approach. Firstly, the candidate types of professionals for team rating were chosen through expert panel discussion. A carefully selected group of participants was then asked to score the suitability of physicians, nurses, or other candidate therapists for each category’s rat-ing, applying the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health Rehabilitation Set in clinical evaluation. After initial assignment of cate-gory to types of professionals, a second round Delphi survey was conducted to quantify the professionals’ agreement with the category assignments and generate a final team evaluation approach.
Results: Thirty of the category assignments achiev-ed consensus. The final team evaluation approach assigned 6 categories to physicians to evaluate, 7 categories to nurses, 9 categories to physiotherapists, and 8 to occupational therapists.
Conclusion: Such a team evaluation approach could facilitate implementation of the ICF-RS in clinical settings and provide a more convenient assessment tool for professionals.

As the Chinese International Classification of Function-ing, Disability and Health Rehabilitation Set became widely used in rehabilitation institutions in China, it was found to be time-consuming and inefficient for a single rater to complete the entire evaluation in a single setting. Team evaluation provides an alternative team approach for busy professionals, especially when used to evaluate patients with complex problems or poor communication ability. The whole set of 30 evaluation categories was divided among a hypothetical team consisting of a physician, a nurse, a physiotherapist and an occupational therapist, with 6 categories assigned to the physician, 7 to the nurse, 9 to the physiotherapist, and 8 to the occupational therapist. Each professional in the team rated categories closely related to their daily work. The team evaluation approach promises to better share the evaluation workload, perhaps improving the accuracy of evaluations and strengthening interdisciplinary collaboration in the clinic.