Jan E. Nordvik, PhD

Dr. Nordvik is a psychologist and Manager of The Regional Center of Knowledge Translation in Rehabilitation, Sunnaas Rehabilitation Hospital, in Norway.  He also currently serves as the Awards Chair for MNG. His pictures convey his varied Norwegian work settings at this time of year! Dr. Nordvik’s current goals include increasing systematic use of outcome measures in the rehabilitation services sector throughout Norway with two major projects.  First he plans to target big data-collection at a systems level. At the same time, he will spearhead training of health care professionals in methodical use of outcome measures as part of a regional knowledge translation project.

Dr. Nordvik in one of his Norwegian work settings

“We need data to evaluate the effect of the rehabilitation services in Norway and the long-term outcome for patients using our services. In 2017 we will hopefully start piloting a digital, shared core set for more than 35 rehabilitation hospitals and centers,” says Nordvik.

He explains that the mandatory reporting of patient data in the US with instruments like the IRF-PAI is a major difference between the services in the US and Norway. His hopes that Norway will soon have a data collection system available to guide the future development of rehabilitation services, but sees training of individual health care professionals as a critical part of the plan.  Dr. Nordvik states that Norwegian providers need not only to know how to use outcome measures systematically, but to fully grasp why it is important for the patients and the services they provide. Knowledge translation of measurement methodology and evidence into clinical practice is a main activity for Sunnaas, the regional center Nordvik is heading. Their outcome measure core project evolved from a knowledge translation project that was based on a successful model from Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

Sandra L. Kletzel, PhD

Sandie presented a poster at the ACRM 2016 Annual Conference and it received the “best poster” award from the Neurodegenerative Disease Networking group. This work is now an accepted manuscript for publication and will be in the journal, Parkinsonism and Related Disorders. Look out for her manuscript titled, Evaluating the performance of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment in the early stage Parkinson’s disease. Sandra L. Kletzel**, Juan Manuel Hernandez, MA, Elizabeth F. Miskiel, MA, Trudy Mallinson, PhD**, and Theresa Louise-Bender Pape, Dr PH, MA, CC-SLP/L** wrote this manuscript.

**Indicates ACRM members.