We are delighted to announce that our 10th (and final) tweetchat of 2019 will be co-led on Wednesday, 27th November (7.30pm – 8.30pm UK time) by the #ReSNetSLT Team, with special guests Neil Bindemann and Professor Pam Enderby.
The chat will be hosted by Hazel Roddam and Ellie Jones, as part of an AHP workshop in Preston.
We’ll also be joined by Milly Heelan, Sophie Chalmers and Heather Stewart. And we hope that we’ll have some brand new Twitter recruits joining our chat for the very first time.
This paper will form the basis of our tweetchat discussions (download it by right click on the image). And here is a supplementary paper also by Pam.
The Therapy Outcome Measure (TOM), which was first released and published in 1999 and over the years has been adapted many times. The purpose was to provide a simple, reliable, cross disciplinary and cross-client group method of gathering information on a broad spectrum of issues associated with therapy/rehabilitation.
It is an outcome measure that allows professionals from many disciplines working in health, social care and education to describe the relative abilities and difficulties of a patient/client in the four domains of ‘impairment’, ‘activity’, ‘participation’ and ‘wellbeing’ in order to monitor changes over time.
TOM has been rigorously tested for reliability and clinical validity. It is quick and simple to use, taking just a few minutes to complete, and is used for treatment planning, clinical management, audit and research. It allows for the aggregation of data so that comparisons can be made for the purposes of internal and external benchmarking.
Following an in-depth analysis of outcome measures, the RCSLT, who recognise TOMs has the ‘Best Fit’ outcome measure have embarked on an innovative and ambitious project to support speech and language therapists with delivering and measuring effective outcomes, using the Therapy Outcome Measure. To read the view of RCSLT on the TOM in an article published in January 2015 in the SLT Bulletin please click here .
Interest in using the TOMs continues to grow and in 2016 the first TOMs CONNECT conference was held, at which services from across the UK came together to share experiences of using the TOMs in the services. In 2018 and second meeting was held which focused more on supporting the services on TOMs data analysis.
In 2018, Prof Pam Enderby was invited to speak on the TOMs at the SEN show, held at the Islington Business Design Centre. As most will know, the SEN show focused on the latest development to support Special Educational Needs within the education sector.
In this special feature Tweetchat we will be considering the growing interest in TOMs in measuring the impact of SEN provision and the support it offers SLTs in this sector, plus a second paper that discusses the relevance of TOMs to commissioning and measuring the value of a service.
If you wish to read more about the TOMs and also some of the research work that is going on using the TOMs then please visit the TOMs CONNECT page on the Community Therapists Network.
And here is a fabulous TOMs resource – a new dynamic poster presentations page where you can view and listen to the research posters that were presented at the TOMs CONNECT 18 conference on the 27th November in Birmingham.
Questions:
- What is your experience of using therapy outcome measures TOMS? Let us know what setting this was in, why you decided to use TOMs?
- Who was involved with implementation? From our multidisciplinary participants in today’s chat, have you noticed any profession-specific differences in the use of TOMs?
- What were the barriers and facilitators to using TOMS in your service or research?
- Do you have any examples of where using outcome measures enabled you to identify, or make improvements, or influenced change?