From The Founder: Technology and Your Practice

Because our focus for May is my forte—technology—I thought I’d take the writing reins for this month. I’m sure many of you know the story of WebPT; but for those of you who don’t, it all started back in the summer of 2006 when Heidi—who was running a large sport clinic here in Arizona—asked me to help her find an EMR system. At that time, I’d been in the software field for 15 years and had seen my fair share of products, so I agreed to give her a hand.

After seven or eight demos, I was dumbfounded. Maybe it was my outsider’s viewpoint, but with each demo I couldn’t help but think there had to be a better option out there. To top it off, the costs were ridiculous! Some of the quotes we received for her 10-therapist clinic reached into the 100K range after we factored in the servers, yearly re-licensing, support, and IT staff to keep it all running. It was at this point that I offered to build Heidi a “little App” for her clinic.

Who knew that 6 years later we would be serving over 11,000 members in every state as well as throughout the Virgin Islands, Guam, and Canada. I used to tease Heidi that PT was the industry technology left behind like some lost Technicolor island where dinosaurs still roamed the land chasing cavemen. While I had a couple laughs at her expense, I have to say that I’m proud at how fast PTs got it. I guess rather than worrying about an EMR, you all were more focused on treating patients.

The adoption curve has since rocketed to an almost vertical climb, and with the release of devices like the iPad, PTs are forging the path ahead. While your counterparts in other disciplines are paying out the nose for crappy software built decades ago or filling their hallways with file cabinets, PTs are mobile and cloud-based, iPad-toting technological trailblazers.

Now that you have set this course, rest assured our work here at WebPT is not done: this summer we will release our improved Scheduler; the Speech module is just days away from launch; and there are many new game changers on the way.

It’s been a very rewarding six years for me, and I’m honored to have played a part in the creation of WebPT. But it’s you who really deserve the credit for making WebPT what it is, because after all, we’re nothing without our members.