Stakeholders in the health care enterprise are interested in the comparative effectiveness of treatment alternatives. Rehabilitation is a key component of the health care system that is expected to grow as the population ages and increasing numbers of patients survive with chronic illnesses and disabilities. At present, however, rehabilitation lacks sufficient rigorous research to guide clinicians and consumers toward effective treatments. The field has a plethora of measures of case mix and outcome, but the treatment process itself is a “black box” specified only crudely with metrics such as length of stay, sessions of physical therapy, and course of vocational rehabilitation. The rehabilitation treatments that must be compared in effectiveness research are not specified in sufficient detail to be measured and studied with respect to their differential impact on outcomes important to consumers. In 2008, we embarked on a NIDRR (National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research)-funded 5-year effort to improve classification and measurement of rehabilitation interventions. This culminated in a conceptual framework for a rehabilitation treatment taxonomy (RTT), described in a January 2014 supplement to Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. This work in progress has received enthusiastic support, commentary, and dissemination from many rehabilitation disciplines. We included representatives of these disciplines in periodic discussions and workshops to help shape the effort described in this report.
