What Health Informatics Means in Physical Therapy

“Health informatics can be anything,” explains Jennifer Danzo, PT, DPT, a physical therapist at Cleveland Clinic. “It can be anything from improving documentation burden to educating patients and other clinicians.”

Dr. Danzo says informatics is ultimately about improving efficiency. In physical therapy, that can include using digital tools to support documentation, education, communication and patient outcomes.

Because physical therapists communicate daily with patients, clinicians and support staff, they must be able to explain concepts in ways each audience can understand — a skill that aligns closely with informatics.

How informatics supports patient care

“Physical therapists educate patients every day,” she explains. “Standardized educational modules and learning videos are just some of the tools that fit into the health informatics category.”

While patient education is a big part of physical therapy, Dr. Danzo notes that it’s important to use standardized educational modules to ensure it’s accessible and available to all patients.

“I've learned that you have to make sure that the modules are at an easy-to-understand level,” says Dr. Danzo. “Informatics can help with this. There is software that can analyze whether there are accessibility issues for patients with hearing or visual impairments, and you can adjust the comprehension level.”

Developing education modules

Dr. Danzo says that when it comes to creating informatics tools, like education modules, collaboration is key. Successful implementation requires input from several different teams, so collaboration between subject matter experts, IT teams and research chairs is important.

“Some things have to get implemented in the EHR, so it’s important to include the IT team at every step of the process,” says Dr. Danzo. “Including the research chair as part of the team when we're designing more research-based tools is helpful too so that we can make sure we’re conveying the right messaging or measuring the right things.”

Beyond educating patients, informatics can also improve education modules for clinicians. Having standardized, easily accessible modules helps ensure clinicians are also up-to-date and informed.

“Something else we’ve worked on is a learning management system, which gives the Cleveland Clinic physical therapists and other specialists in our rehab department one spot where they go for their education needs and track their certificates,” says Dr. Danzo.

How informatics improves education and communication

Dr. Danzo believes that because physical therapists frequently communicate with so many departments, part of their role can be described as translators.

“We translate back to the EHR team what we need, and we translate to the patients what they don't understand,” she explains. “So, we hold this dual role as a translator for many departments. Internally, we also help interpret IT updates for fellow physical therapists. If we identify documentation issues or see a way to make information easier to capture, physical therapy informaticists can work with the IT team to request practical improvements.”

That translator role also extends beyond the IT department. The ability to translate information is just as important when physical therapists communicate with physicians and surgeons to help improve patient care.

“Outcome data can help show physicians, surgeons and other referring clinicians the role physical therapy plays in improving patient outcomes,” says Dr. Danzo. “A lot of what physical therapists already do — educating patients, clinicians and one another — overlaps with informatics. We just don’t always label it that way.”

Future opportunities and priorities

The field is still developing, but Dr. Danzo says physical therapists are already well positioned to expand informatics in practical, patient-centered ways.

She says EHR data could be used to improve communication, support more effective alerts and ultimately help optimize patient outcomes and care plans.

“As physical therapists, we might not always be able to tell the surgeon that their patient is falling below the curve,” she explains. “So, with informatics, we can create alerts on our EHR telling us this patient is behind the curve, and that alert also goes to the physician, PA or NP. That way, everybody is on the same page, and we can work together to figure out how to get the patient to where they need to be.”

All of this underscores the potential for informatics to help physical therapists formalize and strengthen work that is already part of their role.

“Technology is becoming increasingly integrated into our day-to-day work, and because physical therapists already educate patients and collaborate with other specialists, there’s a natural overlap with informatics,” says Dr. Danzo. “Our ability to educate and translate information for different teams means we already have many of the skills needed to be effective informaticists. The next step is asking the right questions and working with the right teams to solve problems more effectively.”