Rehabilitation Services staff present at national conference

At the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) held recently in Denver, CO, members of Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital’s Rehabilitation Services Department shared their work in a podium presentation titled “Total Knee Arthroplasty: Driving Clinical Excellence Through Data and Innovation.”

The project, authored by Inpatient Physical Therapist Kathryn Belanger, PT, MPT, Director of Rehabilitation Services Jean Flanagan Jay, PT, DPT, CLT, Manager of Inpatient Physical Therapy Gina Marsh, PT, MSPT, Inpatient Physical Therapist Sherrie Renzi, PT, MSPT, and Inpatient Physical Therapist Susan Torchia, PT, DPT, examines how data from over 1,000 patients, collected from 2008 to 2018, was used to refine the hospital’s inpatient total knee arthroplasty program to ensure safe, timely and cost-effective care.

The session, attended by roughly 250 conference goers, was well received. “We shared over 10 years of data highlighting how much the orthopaedic program has grown,” says Marsh. “The audience was really engaged and asked a lot of great questions. Most wanted to learn more about the work we do on the inpatient floors, in the outpatient orthopaedic clinic and with our app. They also had questions about managing databases over the years.”

For Marsh and her colleagues, sharing their work on a national stage is very important. “We were able to showcase the work we have done for our orthopaedic program and how the use of data can drive clinical changes in your practice,” she says. “As practitioners we always need to develop our skill set and improve our knowledge base, and conferences like the APTA Combined Sections Meeting allow everyone to grow and learn from physical therapists across the country.”

Director of Rehabilitation Services Jean Flanagan Jay, PT, DPT, CLT, couldn’t be more proud of her team and the work they have done over the years to grow the orthopaedic program. “This has been a 10-year journey of hard work and dedication by the inpatient physical and occupational therapy team,” she says. “They have stayed late at night to see patients, worked many extra hours and provided clinical feedback so we would make the appropriate adjustments to the many changes we were faced with. Their efforts have provided valued feedback and caused positive change in our program.”