First things first – rest & digest

It was a fun, but long haul in the past few month. And there seems to be only one right way to continue in the next little while. The motto here is: rest & digest and temporarily ignoring getPTsmart.com’s entire existence. While this may seem harsh to some, we believe that it will allow us to return with the drive and creativity we need to make getPTsmart.com a successful venture beyond the boundaries of a PAP. This little disclaimer out of the way, there are of course some plans and ideas worth mentioning.

Natural growth

From the get-go it was the objective to focus our efforts on the development of a web application with a lasting shelf life. A sound foundation and extendibility was the key. If we wanted getPTsmart.com to stay useful and applicable, it needed to be possible to add case content with ease.

Now, that the web application is completed, additional case studies of all sorts (e.g. orthopedic, cardiorespiratory, pediatrics and others) can be added easily by anybody who has been introduced to the back-end.

To give our users and reviewers a clear idea of how getPTsmart.com works, we committed to feed the web app with three trial case studies. That being said, we do believe that the true potential of our project will come to show once users and professors alike deliver new case studies on continuous basis.

Integration & future use

We are excited about the feedback we have received regarding the implementation of getPTsmart.com in the clinical reasoning modules of Physical Therapy programs at the University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam. Although no final decisions have been made, several professors are enthusiastic about integrating getPTsmart.com into their lectures and thereby supporting its natural growth.

Who will run the show?

That’s a difficult one to answer. For now we will continue to discuss the future of getPTsmart.com with our client Jan-Jaap Voigt, our coach Bas Moed and various other experts for external input. From our current standpoint we would love to see our product being put to use. And we are keen on developing it further if we can see it being feasible beyond the scope of our current studies. Several models have been discussed within and outside of our team, yet a final decision is still to be made.

Data collection

In the world of evidence based practice, speculation and expert advice only goes so far. Rather sooner than later decisions have to be based on a large pool of solid data. The same accounts for getPTsmart.com. We have received heaps of appraisals from professionals, but we really have no clue how our product works for its intended target group on a large scale. We need a multi-centre cohort study so to speak. Initially, this was part of our to-dos to be completed before the PAP deadline. However, as a down-side to all the professional chit-chat that currently appears to be surrounding our project, we are not allowed to set our web application free. So for now it will remain in the dark, waiting to be unleashed.

Once our project sees the light of day, quantitative and qualitative data can be gathered to help make sound choices for future developments and integration.

Future developments & upgrades

From the beginning there were too many great ideas and plans for the short period of time and limited resources we had available. Throughout 20+ meetings with professionals and various feedback from our potential users, the wish-list grew out of proportion. As a final set of lines for this post, here are two of the ideas we plan to develop and integrate:

1. A forum where users can discuss solutions to the case studies
2. A user manual for the integration of getPTsmart.com into lectures

We have put countless hours of tea- and chocolate-driven brain work into the creation of our “PT Client Management Canvas”, which, to safe the tongue-twisting nature of the title, we simply like to call the “Canvas”. Admittedly “Canvas” is not as specific as PTCMC, but certainly much more user friendly.

The idea of the Canvas grew out of the need for a communication structure between getPTsmart.com and its users. We needed a form which allowed for the step-by-step recording of HOAC II-based clinical reasoning procedures that was intuitive, accurate and flexible. Simple, right? Well, what we thought to be a quick little add-on to our original project plan turned into a massive mission, both in workload and value. When we set out we knew that in order for the Canvas to benefit the project, it needed to fulfill a few key characteristics. Specifically, it needed to

1. allow for recording of all major HOAC II reasoning steps,
2. feature the ICF domains & terminology,
3. be intuitive and attractive by design and
4. leave room for different documentation habits & likings.

First scribbles

We probably had a good 50 scribbles, but this one is worth sharing, as it formed the foundation of the Canvas centre piece, the “Problem Tracking” sheet.

Canvas - First scribble

The rigid mid-phase

I guess you could say that we let our desire to create order out of chaos take the lead in this phase. We found ourselves caught in trying to structure what was virtually impossible to structure for a broad audience and a flexible application. The form featured an overly detailed interview findings section, neatly sliced-up into minute data boxes, barely large enough for type-writer based recording.

Canvas - Rigid version

Status-quo

We backed-off on the compulsive need to structure every single piece of the form and retained the structure where it was clearly needed for the purpose of communicating the HOAC II based clinical reasoning.

Canvas - Status-quo

Future

Hard to say what will happen with the Canvas in the near and far future. It greatly depends on the spread and popularity of getPTsmart.com, but we’re keen on continuously tweaking the Canvas based on your feedback and our own trials.

When we first started to think about our professional assignment project topic in March 2011, we had some ideas about getting into research about taping, low back pain or exercise adherence and also thought of dissecting a few knees. After some exploration and hitting of walls, we came up with an idea of developing a tool to support PTs in their assessment procedures in orthopaedic cases. We spoke with one of our professors who approached us with the idea of the HOAC II. We got hold of the article by Rothstein et al. (2003), read it (read: saw the algorithms) and found every single cell of our bodies to completely reject the idea. In comparison to our original ideas, it just seemed a little dry.

We brainstormed some more. We wanted our project to have practical relevance and to be applicable to every day work of a PT. Well, the HOAC II must have stayed in the back of our minds as getPTsmart.com is where we have ended. And we’re very happy about that. The project didn’t end up being dry at all – very much the opposite. We began by making a pen and paper version of our vision for the website. You can check out the video here.

It seemed like a do-able project although we weren’t really sure how exactly we would get to the end – but we had great plans and that’s what mattered. The plans developed in our minds over the summer and we found ourselves reading up on everything to do with the topic, drawing sketches that would become the Canvas and dreaming of all the possibilities a website could offer.

As the result of litres of coffee, countless sleepless nights, many more sketches and even more lines of code, as our teacher Jan-Jaap Voigt calls it, the baby was born.