As a chiropractor I have always used home exercise as a main component of care. While manual care such as joint and soft tissue manipulation are powerful and necessary tools, I truly believe that if we prescribe appropriate exercises that our patients can do while they are away from our office it can empower our patients, speed recovery, and promote and maintain improved musculoskeletal health.
While this seems like a simple concept providing home exercises to a diverse patient base can be a source of incredible frustration and can take up a lot of time. I mean how many of us have had to teach the same exercise over and over to the same patient.
So we have a problem.
To provide the best care and ensure the best outcomes for our patients we need to have a way to easily prescribe the right exercises to our patients, but our patients also need to have the tools to remember their exercises and make sure they are doing their exercises the right way and at the right dose.
And we need to be able to this quickly and efficiently. Yes our main goal is to get our patients better, but we are also running a business and at some point we need to get to the next patient.
The problems with existing exercise software programs
In my quest to improve and streamline exercise prescription in my office I have used and subscribed to countless rehab and exercise software programs….. but I have always been disappointed.
The fact is that most of these programs use old, outdated technology. I mean printed exercise sheets look cheap, waste ink, and really do not provide much detailed information about how to actually do the exercises with proper form.
They might show a picture or two with some basic text at best which really does not provide a lot of detail on how to do the exercise properly. It is hard to put a complicated exercise with 5-6 steps on a print out.
And more often than not patients would lose their sheets before they got home anyway, so what’s the point?
Some programs allowed me to email the patient their exercises which was better, but it was basically just a printout that they could view on the computer. But in most cases it still did not provide enough step-but-step instruction to ensure they did the exercise correctly…and forget about a video.
There had to be a better way.
Fast forward several years and smartphones exploded onto the scene. All of a sudden everyone did everything on their phones. From email, to web surfing, to social media, even doing things like getting directions and depositing cheques. All of a sudden everyone was tied to their phones.
The revolution had begun…and this was starting to be the case in my office too.
When showing people exercises many of them would takes pictures and videos with their phones so they could easily reference them when they got home.
In one sense this was great as it allowed the patient to always have their home exercise plan with them wherever their were – but it was a huge time zap waiting for the patients to get their phones ready and having to demonstrate the exercises again and again so the patient could make sure they ‘got the shot’.
But an idea was born…. what if I had an easy way to prescribe exercises and send them right to the patient’s phone?
The My Rehab Connection Solution
The is exactly what we have developed with My Rehab Connection. An exercise prescription software solution that allows you to quickly prescribe exercises for your patients, and send them directly to your patient’s’ phone via a free app. (You can check out all the features and read about how it works here).
But as we started to develop the app and software we realized there was so much more we could do with the platform, like customize the app for each clinic and make it an effective contact and communication channel between the patient and the clinic.
Some of the features we have already included is the ability for each clinic to add their logo, contact info, call and email functions, and the ability to link to an online calendar to book an appointment. You can even link the app to your Facebook and other social media pages to keep the patient engaged and build your social media presence.
And that’s not all. We also have some great features that we are working on that will help educate patients about their specific conditions and care plans, including an injury library, report of findings, and recommended reading features. Stay tuned for these features, we will keep you updated.
I can honestly say that using My Rehab Connection in my office has made exercise prescription faster, easier, and more effective. And patients love it. I hope you will have a similar experience. (And if you don’t, please let us know. I truly want My Rehab Connection to help you as a chiropractor improve patient care and make your office more efficient).
Sincerely,
Jason Gray BHK, DC, MSc
Founder, My Rehab Connection