My name is Susannah Bailin
I am the Co-Founder & CEO of AC Health
A few years ago, I was in physical therapy for two (!) frozen shoulders. I could barely lift my arms, let alone do the ordinary tasks of daily life. In pain and frustrated, I turned to my physical therapist for help.
As part of the course of treatment, I received a home exercise plan with some paper diagrams that would supposedly help me complete my exercises. Later, I got personalized videos — which I loved! — but they were trapped on my personal camera roll, with no additional context.
I desperately wanted to be well again, but I couldn’t help thinking that there had to be a better way to do my home exercises.
Surely paper diagrams weren’t the best solution!
After much thought, I realized that — despite my wonderful therapist and my personal desire to heal — there were many barriers to my home exercise program:
- Lost Handouts – The paper handouts got lost, stuffed into purses and flying out the instant I wanted to get something. When I did have them, they were just plain confusing!
- Personalized Approach – I missed my therapist walking me through my exercises, encouraging me and reminding me about the specific modifications we’d made for my personal limitations.
- Pain Free – Perfect models in generic exercise videos that my therapist suggested for extra help discouraged my progress. How could I, with two frozen shoulders, possibly do what they smoothly and easily did? Besides, the exercise wasn’t exactly what my therapist had shown me during our session, so why bother?
- Reminders – Remembering my exercises with my therapist’s exact instructions, when I was inundated with competing information and instructions.
Fear – Fear of doing something wrong and causing even more pain made me scared to try the exercises on my own. - Lack of Progress – At least, progress that I could see and that fit with my personal goals — made me feel as though there were no point to doing the exercises at all, even if I had been compliant.
- Communication Challenges – I was uncomfortable texting or emailing my therapist with private, personal information and questions about my home exercise program.
My name is Susannah Bailin
I am the Co-Founder & CEO of AC Health. A few years ago, I was in physical therapy for two (!) frozen shoulders. I could barely lift my arms, let alone do the ordinary tasks of daily life. In pain and frustrated, I turned to my physical therapist for help.
As part of the course of treatment, I received a home exercise plan with some paper diagrams that would supposedly help me complete my exercises. Later, I got personalized videos — which I loved! — but they were trapped on my personal camera roll, with no additional context.
I desperately wanted to be well again, but I couldn’t help thinking that there had to be a better way to do my home exercises.
Surely paper diagrams weren’t the best solution!
After much thought, I realized that — despite my wonderful therapist and my personal desire to heal — there were many barriers to my home exercise program:
- Lost Handouts – The paper handouts got lost, stuffed into purses and flying out the instant I wanted to get something. When I did have them, they were just plain confusing!
- Personalized Approach – I missed my therapist walking me through my exercises, encouraging me and reminding me about the specific modifications we’d made for my personal limitations.
- Pain Free – Perfect models in generic exercise videos that my therapist suggested for extra help discouraged my progress. How could I, with two frozen shoulders, possibly do what they smoothly and easily did? Besides, the exercise wasn’t exactly what my therapist had shown me during our session, so why bother?
- Reminders – Remembering my exercises with my therapist’s exact instructions, when I was inundated with competing information and instructions.
Fear – Fear of doing something wrong and causing even more pain made me scared to try the exercises on my own. - Lack of Progress – At least, progress that I could see and that fit with my personal goals — made me feel as though there were no point to doing the exercises at all, even if I had been compliant.
- Communication Challenges – I was uncomfortable texting or emailing my therapist with private, personal information and questions about my home exercise program.
Then I thought, “Why isn’t there an app for patients to do their exercises?”
AN APP THAT OFFERS …
Then I thought, “Why isn’t there an app for patients to do their exercises?”
AN APP THAT OFFERS …
I grew more excited. Yes, an app could help put all my exercises in one place!
But, it would have to do more than just offer me a checklist.
- The App needed to be simple, intuitive, and easy-to-use for both providers and patients. In fact, it had to be easy enough that even I — in my fifties! — could figure out how it worked without hours of instruction or training.
- The App should be as secure as possible, with HIPAA-compliant features so that everyone felt like their private conversations would stay, well, private.
- I trusted my provider’s exercise program, not a generic stranger. So, the App should make creating customized exercises easy and fast — so fast, I would have my exercises as soon as my session was over!
- Most of all, the App would not only need to contain my exercise program, but also make sure I completed them. (There’s no use having a list of tasks to do if you can’t bring yourself to do them!) The App’s design and features would need to encourage patients to change their behaviors — that is, motivate them to comply with their exercises. I needed to give myself every advantage possible, so behavioral triggers and personal incentives would need to be built into the App at every level.
When the first version of AC Health was done, I presented it to my physical therapist.
I wanted to get his input, and see if he would use it. He loved it! In fact, he’s still an AC Health provider today. And now after several years and hundreds of other providers requesting their custom “Channels” in the App for their own patients, AC Health continues to expand its network.
AC Health is everything I could have asked for as a patient and has proved itself indispensable to our providers.
We may have started with physical therapists, but providers from many medical specialties have adopted our patient-centered, custom program for their own patients.
From national clinics in all four time zones to independent, mobile therapist — AC Health serves all medical professionals who understand and embrace the power of a personalized, patient-centered program for both patients and practice alike.
How can we help your patients succeed today?
