Measuring Therapy Productivity in Acute Care

Judy Posts:

DEAR ERI COMMUNITY: Has anyone found a good way to measure productivity in acute care? It can vary so much from day to day for the evaluating therapists depending on what types of patients were admitted and how many times that you have to go back to a patient before you can see them due to tests, etc. Also, I feel like sometimes the PT is consulted only so that the physician can decide where the best place is to send the patient the next day such as SNF, acute rehab, or home. My background is acute rehab and I am having trouble feeling like I am doing my best in acute care. I work in different facilities now as a floater.Thanks

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NDT Recertification

 

As all of you who are NDT certified know, NDT certification is now valid for 3 years, from the date of acceptance into the program. Re-certification is a new process that requires 20 hours of continuing education in the three year time period. The 20 hours must include a minimum of 8 hours of NDT training. The other 12 hours can be any CE course in your area (pediatric vs. adult). 

BUT DO YOU KNOW??  

The 8 hour NDT training can come from: 

  • ANY NDTA sponsored education including conferences, seminars and certificate courses.  NOT JUST ADVANCED COURSES!! 
  • ANY Non-NDTA sponsored NDT courses taught by an active NDTA Instructor (see our links below)
  • Hours must be obtained in area of certification (adult or pediatrics)

Here are some possibilities of continuing education courses that would meet the requirements: 

NDT Treatment of the Baby and Child – Suzanne Davis

Pediatric NDT Treatment Intensive – Barbara Hodge

Intensive Handling and Problem Solving for function: an NDT Approach – Linda Kliebhan

Three Day Intensive on Treating the Child with Hypotonia – Barbara Hypes

NDT  and MFR for Children with Neurological Disabilities – Barbara Hodge

Assessment and Treatment of Children with Oral Motor, Feeding/Swallowing and Respiratory Function Challenges: Children with Neuromotor Involvement – Rona Alexander

Integrating NDT, SI and Motor Learning Perspectives in Pediatrics – Lezlie Adler

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Free CE Course for Acute Care Therapists

Our new blog has been very successful building a strong pediatric therapy community. We would like now to do the same for our acute care therapists, building a community that will serve you well, a place for you to share your ideas, challenges, solutions and to learn therapy tips from others. We would also like to be able offer a post course discussion for our acute care therapists, building on this new community.

We are offering you the opportunity to be entered into a drawing for a free CE course.
All you need to do is submit a blog entry which can be:
1. an acute care clinical issue that you are seeking opinions about. 
2. a case problem relating to the acute care field that you are struggling with. 
3. an acute care therapy tip that you would like to share.

The post can be of any length (up to 500 words) and photos and videos are great, as long as you have obtained written permission.

We will enter the first 30 blogs in a drawing for a free ERI course. 
Deadline for entry is November 9th, 2012 – winner to be announced before the end of November

Please Post your entry here or visit our blog page and click on “Post Your Blog Here”

We look forward to hearing your thoughts and sharing them with our ERI community.

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Stretching Your Continuing Education Dollars

One of the frequently asked questions we get is: what is the most efficient use of my budgeted continuing education dollars? 

We are very aware of how CE budgets have been cut in recent years, and we have approached this issue in several ways. We always have a featured course on our home page that will be discounted. We rotate this course so that many topics will be featured. Periodically we will also offer a coupon to celebrate a particular holiday. Visit our home page to find both coupons and discounted continuing education courses. 

In addition, if you have a continuing education topic that you want your entire staff to be trained on, we can bring a speaker into your facility to cover this topic which can also be customized. The more staff you have, the more cost effective this is, and obviously, there are no travel expenses for you or your staff.  Browse our website in order to find a topic and faculty member that meets your needs! 

For more information on co-hosting or an in-house course, contact Marianne at:
mboynton@educationresourcesinc.com 

 

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Should I take a live Continuing Education course or an on-line course?

After sponsoring and developing live courses for over 25 years, we admit to being just a tad prejudice about live continuing education courses! Our professions (physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech language pathology) are used to being physically active. So I don’t need to tell you that sitting at a desk taking an on-line course can be an excruciatingly painful experience for many of us.

While there is certainly nothing that compares to the convenience of sitting in your pajamas and taking an on-line course, you have to weigh the convenience over the inspiring shot-in-the-arm experience of learning alongside your colleagues at a live course.

Did you know?

We conducted a formal survey of over 900 therapists who overwhelmingly said they prefer live courses to any other form of continuing education. These therapists pointed out that 1 or 2 hour courses on-line did not (and could not) have the depth and breadth of a one or two day course.

Here is the key to help you decide:

If you are looking for pure didactic information go for an on-line course!  If you are searching for clinical problem solving, or a hands-on skill, and depth of knowledge that comes from a one or two day long course, there is nothing that energizes you like a live continuing education course interacting with instructors and colleagues.

What has been your experience with on-line courses? Feel free to share this information in this blog!

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