How AC Health Helps Specialty Rehab Providers

In 1985, the American Board of Physical Therapy Specialties (ABPTS) began board certifying physical therapists in several areas of specialty practice, and since that time, more than 30,000 PTs have obtained specialist certification. Within occupational therapy, there are more than thirty specialty certifications that OTs can obtain to narrow their clinical niche, and in 2021, the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) began to develop and offer board certification exams for certain specialty practice areas.

It’s clear that clinical specialization is becoming more and more prevalent within the rehabilitation professions, and physical and occupational therapists are seeking out niche practice areas in which to focus their careers. In increasingly specialized clinical spaces, it’s important that the health technology rehab providers are using matches the unique needs of their patient populations.

If you’re a niche rehab provider, it’s time to let go of outdated, generic tools that don’t meet your needs as a specialist. Let’s consider how carefully selecting the health tech you use can help you provide better, more personalized care for your specific patient population, regardless of your specialty practice area.

Personalize for your Patients

In niche clinical practice, “one size fits all” tools simply don’t pass muster. Take the standard orthopedic home exercise library, for example. It’s filled with generic exercises that may work just fine for a portion of your patient population, but which simply don’t apply to your pediatric athlete with shoulder instability or your post-partum mom with pelvic girdle pain.

Library exercises can’t be easily modified to suit the unique needs of specific patients: even if you consider yourself an “outpatient generalist”, you can appreciate the frustration of being unable to find an exercise or instructions that are just right for the patient in front of you. How many times have you scribbled additional instructions in the margins of an HEP print-out, sent someone home with hand-drawn stick figures, or simply thrown up your hands and asked your patient, “you can remember this exercise, right?”

If you work with a niche population, these problems are only compounded, particularly if your clinic isn’t a specialty practice precisely tailored to that population’s needs. Many providers are the only specialist in their clinic. Consider:

  • The pelvic health therapist working out of an outpatient orthopedics office
  • The only OT in a neurologic rehab practice
  • The sole pediatric specialist in a sports clinic

If this is you, you know that finding the correct home program materials and educational content for your patients is an uphill battle. It’s time to stop struggling. Enter AC Health, the only fully customizable, video-based home program application for rehabilitation professionals. Let’s discuss what makes AC Health so uniquely suited for providers in specialty practice.

Why is AC Health Perfect for Specialists?

While there are many home program builders on the market, none give you the same level of control over your HEP design as AC Health – and as we’ve discussed, this ability to precisely personalize programs is critical in niche practice. The AC Health platform stands out from its competitors because it is:

  • Completely personalized to each patient
  • Quick to use
  • Customizable to the clinician
  • Perfect for patients who need consistent cuing
  • Flexible enough to include more than just exercises
  • HIPAA compliant

When you first access the AC Health app, you’ll see that you have your own unique channel as a clinician. This channel will house all your patients who have downloaded the app, giving you the ability to search and find each individual in a matter of seconds. Once in a patient’s profile, you can select the “Custom” icon and instantly take a photo or video of an exercise in real time.

Because the app is fully HIPAA compliant, you can record yourself or your patient performing the exercise in clinic, and the video will upload to the patient’s app in a matter of minutes – no more sending encrypted emails with video attachments or handling your patient’s phone to record directly on their device.

You can narrate the video with precise instructions to cue the patient through each exercise, just as you would in the clinic – in effect, your patient will have you and your expertise in their back pocket! The app allows you to include written instructions to delineate sets, reps, frequency, and more, and you can name and describe each exercise in a free-form text box.

The real-time video platform allows you to record more than just generic orthopedic exercises: niche practitioners will appreciate the ability to provide audiovisual instruction for a variety of functional activities, from proper lifting mechanics and ergonomic instructions, to neurofacilitation techniques for parents of pediatric patients, to pelvic floor activation and breathing cues for a new mom struggling to lift and carry her newborn.

If you have several key exercises or activities you use on a regular basis with your patient population, you can save recorded videos of yourself performing them to your unique provider library. You can select any existing video from your provider library and add it to a patient’s program. The app also allows providers within the same practice to share these saved demo videos between clinicians.

AC Health is breaking to mold of the traditional rehabilitation exercise library, allowing you to customize your exercises precisely and professionally, provide your patients the real-time cuing they need, and eliminating the time you spent sifting through hundreds of generic exercise pictures.

Over the next few months, we’ll be adding specific details on how the app helps each of the following specialty practitioners – so stay tuned! If you don’t see your specialty featured here and you want more information on exactly how AC Health can transform your practice, contact us and we’ll add you to the list!

Niche Practitioners AC Health Can Help