Simple Shoulder Test Project Page

Welcome to Simple Shoulder Test Project Page

Electronic Simple Shoulder Test Experiment

The Simple Shoulder Test (SST) allows of a simple evaluation of each patient's subjective assessment of their their shoulder function. And with this tool, we are able to compile enormous amounts of data and analyze the many aspects of perceived function pre and post surgery, failed vs non-failed treatment, pre and post surgical course, gender bias, etc.

This simple tool also important in that is can be used to evaluate a patient's current condition/level of function at the time of visit or via phone/email.

Data from these simple shoulder tests have traditionally be inputted by hand into a single database. This requires many man-hours of data entry and has the hi potential for human error. Therefore, we are experimenting with an electronic version of this SST. This would save hundreds of hours of tedious data entry a year, in theory have less errors, and allow of ease of distance collection via internet testing.

Goals brought up by SST team and house staff:

Format needs to be patient friendly
Format must be office staff friendly to minimize potential for human error and time requirement to run program
MD and PA staff need to be able to view test results at time of test for patient assessment
system needs to be as maintenance free as possible to overall decrease man-hours required for data collection

Issues brought up:

Scrolling within a window adds an undesirable level of complexity which will lead to pt confusion.
- Solution - Put all information within viewable window space to eliminate need to scroll
Inputting of pt Name and U-number is a great source of potential error
- Solution - a check is needed - plan to link SST with mindscape so that when pt U number is inputted, staff will be asked if PT "John Smith" is the correct pt. By eliminating name entry (a huge source of potential human error) and applying a check, human error should be minimized.