Variability and inconsistency in clinical education setting terminology: a call to action

Purpose: Significant variation exists in clinical education placement setting terminology amongst clinical education stakeholders. The lack of agreed-upon terminology impacts clear communication between academic institutions and clinical sites while also impacting researchers’ abilities to successfully conduct large-scale national studies. This study explored the variability of physical therapist (PT) student clinical education placement setting nomenclature across the United States. Methods: De-identified full-time PT student clinical education placements between January 2014 and September 2023 were extracted from Exxat© Version 3. Using the American Physical Therapy Association membership profile data as guidance, researchers created broad categories that represented the clinical education placement settings. Eight unique settings along with one category for ‘mixed setting’ and one for ‘unclassified’ were identified: acute care, day rehabilitation, home care, inpatient rehabilitation, long-term acute care hospital, outpatient, school and sub-acute rehabilitation (sub-acute rehabilitation, long-term care and skilled nursing facilities). Extracted data were sorted into those categories. Results: The dataset was composed of 132,320 clinical education placements from 178 PT education programs. There were 1,388 different labels in the dataset used to describe the settings for those clinical education placements. Conclusions: Task forces have worked diligently to establish standardization in terminology in physical therapy clinical education. Due to the current variability in labelling clinical placement settings, the authors present a call to action for the development of agreed-upon placement setting terminology. A common naming system is proposed which may facilitate clear communication between all parties while also supporting research efforts in clinical education.