Physiotherapists in The Walk-In Clinic, Are An Asset.
Introduction
One of the ways to improve the accessibility of physiotherapy is to include it in the first line, as soon as the patient decides to consult. Chestermere Medical Clinic A pilot project has also emerged in a few walk-in clinics in Greater Montreal, where physiotherapists like Marie-Claude Revital Medical see patients on an ad hoc basis. In this article, she explains the advantages of this practice.
Who is it for?
When a person comes to a walk-in clinic, they are usually met by a nurse to whom they describe what led them to consult. Just as a patient who arrives with flu symptoms or a sore throat will meet with a physician for an evaluation, another with a musculoskeletal problem may see a physiotherapist first.
For example, the patient may experience pain in the back, neck, shoulders, hips, knees, fingers or wrists. Cases of positional vertigo or concussion could also be assessed on site by the physiotherapist, depending on his expertise.
What Does The Physiotherapist Do?
Given the context of walk-in clinics, the physiotherapist has about 20 minutes to see each patient, which differs considerably from a regular physiotherapy session, where the assessment takes an hour.
However, it is possible to give a lot to the patient, even in such a short appointment.
"The physiotherapist will take a pain history with the patient, then assess the joint and determine if there are more serious conditions that may require immediate discussion with a physician, such as a suspected fracture. explains Revital Medical.
A Win-Win Partnership
If this way of doing things allows the population to have better access to physiotherapy, it also frees up the doctors, who can concentrate more on other cases.
“When the doctors arrive with the patient, there is already a pain history and a physiotherapy assessment in the file. They still check what they have to check, but it allows them to immediately call on the expertise of a physiotherapist. They are super happy, especially when it comes to complex cases,” says Revital Medical.
For now, in Quebec, the project operates as a public-private partnership between walk-in clinics in the public network and private clinics. They can, for example, send a physiotherapist on-site one day a week.
“The next challenge is for there to be budgets allocated in clinics and family medicine groups (GMF) so that there are physiotherapists on site. I think that in the future, we will see more and more of them,” underlines Revital Medical.
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