Linda Resnik's research, informed by nearly 20 years of clinical experience as a physical therapist, links the fields of rehabilitation and health services research, focusing on three specialized areas: 1) design and evaluation of upper limb prosthetic devices; 2) development, evaluation and deployment of rehabilitation outcomes measures; 3) study of delivery and effectiveness of rehabilitation services. The overarching goal of her research is to improve the quality of rehabilitation care for persons with chronic and disabling conditions. Dr. Resnik has been evaluating new upper limb prosthetic technology for over a decade. She was Principal Investigator of the multi-site VA Study to Optimize the DEKA Arm and led VA efforts to evaluate the DEKA Arm and transition it to clinical practice. She is currently Principal Investigator of a national study of Veterans and active duty service members with upper limb amputation that will provide comparisons of function, satisfaction, quality of life for prosthesis users and non-users, and comparisons by prosthesis and terminal device type. VA RR&D recently funded her for a new merit review that will develop and refine outcome measures that are responsive to the concerns of women with upper limb amputation. She is also collaborating on study design and analysis of data from the first home trials of a neural connected sensory prosthesis study. Dr. Resnik developed and validated two new activity performance measures, and a timed based measure of ADL performance for upper limb amputees. She led the review of measures of upper limb function in the VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guidelines on Rehabilitation for persons with upper limb amputation, and completed two systematic reviews of measures of activity limitation and community integration for persons with amputation and limb trauma. She participated as a co-investigator to develop a toolkit of measures for limb trauma and amputation and was a co-investigator on an AHRQ evidence synthesis which focused, in part, on measures for lower limb amputation. Her work on rehabilitation outcome measurement is not limited to amputation care. She developed measures of Veteran community integration using the conceptual framework of ?participation? as described by the WHO's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, the Community Reintegration of Injured Service Members (CRIS) and the CRIS-CAT a computer adaptive test version of the measure. She also served as chairperson of the VA RR&D's Community Reintegration Working Group. Dr. Resnik is the Director of the Center for Health Services, Research and Training (CoHSTAR), funded by the Foundation for Physical Therapy. CoHSTAR's mission is to expand physical therapy-(PT) relevant health services research. In this capacity, she mentors two PT trainees who focus on PT in the acute care setting, and effectiveness of PT for musculoskeletal conditions. She also mentors PT scientists in annual research intensive workshops, and provides national leadership to promote this work. She participates as a co- investigator on an NIH R01 that is comparing effectiveness of post-acute rehabilitation services. Her earlier rehabilitation-relevant health services research explored factors associated with the most effective rehabilitation care delivery using outcomes to benchmark and profile rehabilitation providers. She has also conducted research to refine risk adjustment models using an index of functional co-morbidity (FCI) to predict patient physical function outcomes. This line of research has continued in conjunction with trainees, expanding to risk adjustment models for hospital readmission, and with a junior faculty member through a CoHSTAR funded pilot study.
Linda Resnik is a physical therapist researcher whose work links the fields of rehabilitation and health services research. She focused on three research areas: 1) design and evaluation of upper limb prosthetic devices; 2) development, evaluation and deployment of rehabilitation outcomes measures; 3) study of delivery and effectiveness of rehabilitation services. Her research involves extensive relationships with clinician scientists, investigators, and VA clinical program leaders to insure that her research findings are shared with providers within VA clinical services and used to improve patient care.
