Improve your patient outcomes with these helpful tips!

By Donis Gil, ATC

As clinical professionals, we are tasked with ensuring that our patients are doing everything they can to help them achieve their goal of reaching a successful outcome. For these reasons, it is imperative that proper exercise instruction is provided during the patients time in the clinic so that they can demonstrate proficiency of exercise execution prior to going home to do their home exercise routines.

So how do we accomplish this?

There are several methods that can be employed to ensure that you have ample time to get this achieved. These methods may include the following:

Game Planning: As Benjamin Franklin once said, "if you fail to plan, then you're planning to fail". Take the time prior to the beginning of your day/shift to review your patient schedule as well as each patient's current plan of care. This will allow you to devise an effective plan of attack that will ensure that each patient is receiving the appropriate level of expected attention they deserve.

"If you fail to plan, then you're planning to fail" - Benjamin Franklin

The Team Approach: Proper utilization of the team approach will allow for an effective and consistent level of care. Please ensure that you as the treating clinician communicate with the members of your clinical team to ensure that you're all on the same page when it comes to each patients' plan of care. This will allow you to spend more time with those patients that may need extra attention or allow you time to figure out any of those curve balls that may inevitably come up during your day.

Attention to detail: One thing that I found has the biggest impact on patient outcomes is attention to detail. Ensure that your patients are maintaining proper technique when performing their rehab exercises. If not properly instructed patients can easily fall into compensatory patterns, decreasing the effectiveness of the exercise. If necessary, enlist your clinical team to make sure your patients are maintain proper form and are aware of any deviations.

Effective Communication: As previously stated, effective and consistent communication with your clinical team will ensure proper and effective execution of the treatment plan. Consistent communication will also help to mitigate any misinformation and/or confusion that may arise.

Educational In-Services: Take the time to organize educational in services with your “clinical team” to review and discuss the various treatment approaches that you are currently using. Research best practices as well as useful techniques to help you and your team to consistently and effectively deliver value to your patients.

As clinical professionals, if we take the time to incorporate these methods into our day to day patient treatment routine it will allow for a successful and consistent level of patient care.

Check out Professional Seminars' Technique Peek Videos for additional resources you can use to help make your patient outcomes continue to improve.

Donis Gil, ATC is the Coordinator of Clinical Education/Seminars and a member of the Clinical Excellence Department at Professional Physical Therapy. He has been Athletic Trainer for over 10 years. He enjoys mentoring new clinicians, with his accumulated clinical knowledge. He can typically be found running around at a Professional Seminars courses and physician lectures making sure everything is running smoothly.