"Physical therapy is not a subspecialty of the medical profession and physical therapists are not medical doctors; we are a separate profession that provides a unique service that physicians are unable and untrained to provide."

Letter to the AMA from the APTA, Dec 2009

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Can PTs make BETTER decisions than physicians?

This International Classification on Functioning (ICF) video describes the unifying framework between the physician and the physical therapy frameworks by Gerold Stucki, MD at the University of Sydney in July 2009.

The link to the video can be found within the World Confederation on Physical Therapy (WCF) December newsletter.
ICF Framework imageLeaders in rehabilitation research aim to unify the Medical model (eg: pathology) with the Biopsychosocial model (eg: functioning).

The ICF is to be the unifying framework that provides a 'common understanding and dictionary of functioning'.

Imagine a physician asking you for the physical therapy diagnosis for a particular patient.

How would you respond?

What treatment recommendations would you make?

On what would you base your decisions?

What measurements justify your decisions?

Can you make decisions better than physicians?
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Tim Richardson, PT owns a private practice at Medical Arts Rehabilitation, Inc in Palmetto, Florida. The clinic website is at MedicalArtsRehab.com.

Bulletproof Expert Systems: Clinical Decision Support for Physical Therapists in the Outpatient Setting is a manager's workbook with stories, checklists, charts, graphs, tables, and templates describing how you can use paper-based or computerized tools to improve your clinic's Medicare compliance, process adherence and patient outcomes.

Tim has implemented a computerized Clinical Decision Support (CDS) system in his clinic since 2006 that serves as a Reminder, Alerting, Prompting and Predicting CDS using evidence-based tests and measures.

Tim can be reached at
TimRichPT@BulletproofPT.com .

"Make Decisions like Doctors"


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Consistent with the American Physical Therapy Association Vision Statement for Physical Therapy 2020, the American Physical Therapy Association supports exclusive physical therapist ownership and operation of physical therapy services.