Technology Trends That Physical Therapy Practices Should be Following to Improve Patient Care

In recent years, technological change has created innovations that we had previously not thought possible. Key to this is taking a data-driven approach that makes collaboration a lot easier and more accessible than ever before. While this has had an enormous effect in the consumer sector, from ride sharing apps like Uber and Lyft, to home-sharing apps like Airbnb, it has also had a significant impact in the field of healthcare. One subset of healthcare that has been particularly affected by technology is physical therapy. As many physical therapy practices are fully exploring how technology can impact their businesses, we’ve complied some of the best technology trends for physical therapy practices. Read on below to find out more.

Focusing on Patient Experience

Of course, focusing on providing quality medical care is a core component of any successful physical therapy practice. But that alone is not a data-driven approach. You need to take it further and also focus on providing a quality patient experience. This covers every interaction you have with a patient, from how they discover you (digitally, referral, etc.) to using your website, to their experience speaking with your front desk staff, to the actual care, discharge, and subsequent handling of their medical records.

To do this, you need to think of the process like a patient. And more importantly, you need to involve technology in this process. For one, make sure you have a great website. For a physical therapy practice, this means that you want a clean and simple design, while easily showcasing key information about your practice and treatment options. Additionally, you want to make sure you have a mobile responsive design. This is just one aspect of patient experience, you also need to make sure that your staff has the tools they need, and that your front desk staff is well equipped with data and information so that they can treat patients with the care and respect that they deserve.

Highlight Collaborative Care

As stated above, one of the great benefits of technology is collaboration. This also extends to healthcare, which means that you can work with a patient’s other clinicians to provide a more holistic type of healthcare. In doing so, you can provide a superior patient experience and make sure that your treatment options are in line with issues that other clinicians have identified. Collaboration, of course, can mean a variety of things, but it does mean that you are working directly with your patient and their other healthcare providers, and communicating both strongly and consistently. In order to make this possible, you can use a web-based approach to create a complete patient profile and communicate regularly with both the patient and their other clinicians to get feedback and better optimize the treatment they are receiving.

Fostering collaboration and communication is hugely important in the healthcare industry to make sure that patients get the best care possible. Check out the infographic below for more tips to open up a transparent dialogue between healthcare professionals and patients.

Infographic provided by Postal Methods, a company that can send postal mail online for your business

In conclusion

As technology continues to impact society, it will also have a huge impact in healthcare. Any physical therapy practice should take not of this trend and make sure to incorporate technological solutions in to their workflow, particularly when it comes to focusing on patient experience and collaboration.