Personalized pain management, recovery and rehabilitation services are offered by Professional Physical Therapy across the Northeast. Chief Development Officer, George Papadopoulos, discusses patient-centric care and customized treatments.
PATIENT-ORIENTED RECOVERY
An important component of orthopedic treatment, physical therapy is often one of the first steps in addressing an injury.
It provides a number of benefits, such as reduced pain and increased range of motion, with the primary goal of restoring function and a return to activity.
Physical therapists are trained to identify the body’s biomechanical deficiencies, and can often target specific weakness areas or improper alignment.
Recognizing the need for effective, individualized care, founding partners George Papadopoulos and Robert Panariello opened the very first Professional Physical Therapy (Professional) clinic in 1999.
“I was determined to become a physical therapist. I wanted to be a life changer for people that were injured, touch people’s lives, and be remembered,” opens Papadopoulos, Chief Development Officer at Professional, a graduate from Long Island University who has been practicing physical therapy for more than 25 years.
“Anyone can follow a protocol and give people exercises, but I wanted to be different on all fronts and spent hours of my free time shadowing orthopedic surgeons to learn evaluative techniques.”
With more than 190 Professional clinics now located throughout Manhattan, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, and the 200th facility currently in the construction phase, receiving quality treatment from the Northeast’s largest physical therapy provider has never been more convenient.
“In the past year, we have opened up more than 15 new offices. Our new clinic growth is at an all-time high and is expected to continue in 2023,” reveals Papadopoulos.
CUSTOMIZED TREATMENT
Offering a full spectrum of outpatient physical, occupational, hand therapy, and rehabilitation services, Professional’s patient-oriented treatment methods have exploded onto the scene.
The company’s revolutionary services, which include many techniques for injury rehabilitation, pain management and ongoing health and wellness, are provided to patients by multi-specialty, highly trained physical therapists who are experts not only in helping to manage pain, but also finding the source.
All physical therapists are accredited, licensed, and qualified to treat a wide range of conditions, with a focus on both surgical and non-surgical sports and orthopedic injuries. Professional employs a wide range of therapists across a multitude of specialities and certifications, and offers onsite and permanent athletic training services to local universities, schools, and sports organizations from amateur to professional teams.
Such clinical expertise and exceptional patient experiences have made Professional the physical therapy provider of choice in the Northeast.
“Our patient-centric treatment philosophy is focused on providing exceptional, compassionate care to the entire person, not just their injury,” Papadopoulos explains.
Professional’s therapists try to identify any points of weakness or stiffness that may be adding stress to the afflicted area, and then treat those areas with certain exercises to ease the pain.
They then create a customized rehabilitation plan catered to the patient’s injury and lifestyle needs. As a company owned and operated by physical therapists, Professional prides itself on the unique ability to tailor treatments to meet the needs of each individual patient.
Duty bound to provide treatments that deliver results, the licensed physical therapists at Professional design these customized treatment plans using the most innovative therapeutics to help patients achieve and exceed their goals.
“It starts with a duty to uphold a code of ethics, demonstrating empathy, compassion, integrity and humility. Follow this up with a quality product that is clinically proven and a delivery system that challenges limits and changes lives, all with the human touch, and it makes everyone feel special,” affirms Papadopoulos.
“Our patient-centric treatment philosophy is focused on providing exceptional, compassionate care to the entire person, not just their injury”
George Papadopoulos, Chief Development Officer, Professional Physical Therapy
ONGOING EDUCATION
The goal of Professional is to provide its physical therapists with personal and professional growth opportunities, including clinical education at every phase of employment.
Professional prides itself on the continuing education that it provides to staff, keeping them on the cutting-edge of new trends in rehabilitation and thus keeping patients healthy and active.
Clinical Excellence, the company’s comprehensive clinical education program, equips clinicians with the knowledge and resources to deliver the best possible outcomes for patients.
Professional promotes patient-centric care by empowering and encouraging its clinicians to remain life-long learners, ensuring patients receive the strongest evidence-based care experience.
The company’s orthopedic residency program, meanwhile, is built around the objective of training motivated individuals in the science and implementation of orthopedic physical therapy.
“The clinical education and residency programs we offer our physical therapists improve patient care, increase credibility, and gives them a competitive edge,” Papadopoulos outlines.
“Professional has established itself as a leader in the field by offering cutting-edge training and development programs that set us apart from the competition.”
A mentorship component is often included in Professional’s clinical education and residency programs, to help therapists gain hands-on experience and develop their skills.
Cross-regional mentorship contributes to better communication and the development of skilled clinicians as it allows knowledge and ideas to be exchanged between different areas, helping to establish a network of support.
“Through the sharing of best practices and evidence-based approaches, cross-regional mentorship can help standardize care and improve patient outcomes. Mentorship can also prepare a younger generation of clinicians to provide high-quality care to patients,” notes Papadopoulos.
“The clinical education and residency programs we offer our physical therapists improve patient care, increase credibility, and gives them a competitive edge”
George Papadopoulos, Chief Development Officer, Professional Physical Therapy
LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGY
The COVID-19 pandemic presented a challenging and unprecedented scenario for providers of physical therapy such as Professional, given treatment requires close contact between therapists and patients.
Though physical rehabilitation is harder to perform remotely than in person, the pandemic has forced many therapists and their clients to adapt to telehealth.
“People will always need human contact for manual techniques, evaluative and special tests that cannot be replicated by telehealth. We will grow to learn how to incorporate telehealth as an ancillary treatment, but it will never replace the human touch for thorough evaluations and treatments.”
As well as using telehealth to provide remote treatment to patients who can’t physically attend clinics, Professional harnesses other state of the art technologies and practices to get patients performing better than ever.
Utilizing the intelligence tool Focus on Therapeutic Outcomes (FOTO), for example, Professional collects data from every patient to measure the physical improvement from the start of care to the end of treatment. The results consistently rank Professional in the top tier nationally across all other physical therapy practices utilizing the technology.
“At Professional, we pride ourselves on quality and always prioritize patient outcomes above all else,” says Papadopoulos.
The MedBridge app, meanwhile, enables patients to track their progress, set goals, and receive tailored exercises and treatment plans.
Professional also has patients use wearable devices such as fitness trackers and smartwatches, in order to monitor their movements, progress, and receive real-time feedback. Data on patient progress is collected by therapists using digital goniometers and dynamometers.
The company, who connects with patients via instant messaging within its home exercise program (HEP), is also looking at motion capture software to collect motion data.
“Utilizing the latest in wearable sensors, motion capture technology, and innovative new biofeedback devices, therapists use tools that provide real-time actionable data to inform their treatment decisions and expedite patient recovery,” Papadopoulos informs us.
“Our investments in systems integration and optimizing our electronic medical record (EMR) system relieve the administrative burden on clinicians and allow them to spend more time providing the exceptional, evidence-based care that is a hallmark of Professional.”
Augmented by technology, Professional remains an industry leader and the Northeast’s number one choice for physical therapy.
