The online AMPREDICT Decision Support Tool, launched in 2021, helps healthcare professionals estimate the one-year risks for patients undergoing a lower leg amputation. The tool estimates the chances of walking again, needing another surgery, or passing away within a year, based on the patient’s health and type of amputation. Building on that work, the same research team has created the PROPREDICT Decision Support Tool. Using the same framework as AMPREDICT, the PROPREDICT tool helps doctors and rehabilitation teams estimate a patient’s mobility 12 months after receiving their first prosthetic. It predicts the chances of using a wheelchair, walking at home, or walking in the community. These estimates are based on the person’s health, amputation level, and other medical and social factors.
PROPREDICT can be used during the evaluation for a patient’s first definitive prosthetic. The web-based tool integrates key predictors similar to the original AMPREDICT model into an interactive, user-friendly online platform. The tool provides graphic displays of four predicted mobility levels, which can help rehabilitation clinicians communicate clearly with their patients about what to expect from their new prosthetics.
During usability testing within the Veterans Health Administration, clinicians gave the tool high marks for usability. In testing, clinicians noted that the new tool has several practical benefits, reported that the tool helped with rehabilitation planning, prosthesis choice, and setting realistic mobility expectations. The VA Office of Information and Technology voted to incorporate both the AMPREDICT and PROPREDICT Decision Support Tools into the VA electronic health record by the end of this year. VA clinicians will have immediate access and the predictors will autopopulate the tool to make it easy to use with little clinical burden.
The research team included Research Associate Professor Dan Norvell, PhD; Professor David Morgenroth, MD; Professor Emeritus Joseph Czerniecki, MD, MS; Assistant Professor Elizabeth Halsne, PhD, MSE, L/CPO; Professor Aaron Turner, PhD; Professor Rhonda Williams, PhD, ABPP-RP; Research Scientist Alison Henderson (PhD); and colleagues from other universities.
For more about this research, read: Translating research into care: Norvell supports veterans with limb loss - UW Medicine | Rehabilitation Medicine.