Increasing Documentation Compliance of the Bedside Mobility Assessment Tool

Objective: The objective of the quality improvement project is to increase documentation compliance and assessments of the Bedside Mobility Assessment Tool (BMAT) to help promote positive health outcomes and increase early mobility, while reducing the over utilization of physical therapy (PT). This can help reduce costs from potential health complications. Aim: The goal is to increase the utilization of the BMAT by 10% from 31.3% to 41.3% across three medical-surgical units from October 9, 2024 to November 22, 2024. Methods: To increase compliance with using the BMAT at the hospital, staff education was delivered through announcements, poster boards, and reminder cards on how to score the assessment when charting in the hospital’s electronic health record (EHR). The staff were educated on the importance of early mobility, how to document the assessment on EPIC, and were provided a link to the training videos on how to perform each stage of the assessment. Baseline data was collected by conducting an audit on the EHR. The data collected was organized into three categories: patient census, the number of BMATs documented during the shift, the percentage of patients assessed. At the end of the 7-week period, a second audit was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the staff education interventions. Results: The average patient census at the start of the 7-week period was 23.7 patients and 23.6 patients at the end of the intervention. The number of BMATs documented during the shift decreased from 7.4 to 5.7. The percentage of the patient census assessed decreased from 31.3% to 24.4%. Conclusion: Overall, the interventions performed during this quality improvement project did not show improvement in utilizing the BMAT across the three medical-surgical units. A major barrier to change is that the hospital’s EHR system won’t make it a requirement until February, 2025.