How to Save Time by Creating Exercise Protocols

A physical therapist or health professional can save time prescribing exercises to patients or clients after creating a home exercise protocol or template. The template function in PT-Helper CONNECT allows the therapist to group exercises together to be able to quickly add these exercises into a home exercise program.

To create a template, follow the steps below to easily add exercises to a template:

Select Settings in the pull-down menu found at the top right of the browser window.

This will take you to the organization’s or clinic’s configuration menu. Press the Manage Templates button at the bottom left of window.

Select Add Template to create a new template.

The Edit Template page will appear where you can provide a name for your template/protocol, add exercises to the template and assign the template to everyone within your organization or to specific individuals.

Once you’ve provided a name for your template, press Advanced Search to visually select exercises to be added into the template.

You can use the Search field or the By Category pull-down menu on the left of the screen to filter exercises to match your search. 

Once you’ve finished selecting all the exercises that you would like to add to the template, press the Add Selected Exercises button at the top or bottom of the exercise list page.

This will take you back to the Edit Template page where you can select the “Is Available To Everyone” button or select specific therapists within your organization or clinic that will have access to this template.

If you select specific therapists, this template will only appear in the Add Exercise page when the specified therapist is also selected as the treating therapist for the patient’s specific injury. 

One reason why templates may be only available for a specific therapist is the therapist may have a unique specialty such as Hand & Finger. Then Hand & Finger templates created for that therapist would not need to be seen by other therapists within the organization.  

Once a template has been created, it can be selected in the Add Exercise page of a patient’s treatment plan. 

Exercises within a template or protocol are meant to be a guide to the treating therapist to ease the process of selecting exercises for the patient. The therapist can select individual exercises within the template and change the exercise parameters to match the patient’s condition and progression. 

Start your Free 30-day Trial of the PT-Helper CONNECT tool for physical therapists and other therapy providers to create and prescribe Home Exercise Programs.