Events

  Somewhere in your career, you’ll watch a patient wait weeks for care they needed in the first 48 hours, and you’ll wonder why nobody built a faster way to reach them. That question is where program development starts.     During my women’s health physical therapy residency, I watched my residency director build rehab’s presence in a world where we were part of prehab before prostatectomy and part of the first week of recovery after mastectomy, entirely through relationships she spent years building and trust she never stopped earning.     When our waitlist was five to six weeks out, she always found a way to get a patient seen sooner.     That same health system later reported saving $815,000 in avoided readmission costs across over 8,400 deliveries by offering PT in the hospital and via telehealth after birth. That result started with relationships, one conversation at a time.     Program development is a relationship skill before it’s anything else. Before you build one, you have to know what you’re building toward: a pathway for birth recovery, starting in the hospital and following patients home, or a pathway for pelvic surgery more broadly, covering common procedures like hysterectomy for patients who never got automatic referrals the way orthopedic patients do.      Both replace the same outdated standard: the 6-week wait built around medical practice, not tissue healing, mental health, or function. This session kicks off our new ERAD cohort and it’s the third in a series that’s followed the arc of building a program from the ground up: first to physicians on leading one, then to therapists on presenting it to their maternal care team, and now to you on deciding what you’re actually building and where to start.   We’ll cover how to identify which direction fits your setting and how to build the pathway that gets patients seen in week one instead of week six.   You don’t need it figured out before this session. You need to show up with questions on where to begin.   See you soon. - Rebeca Segraves, PT, DPT, PWCS Register HERE.

Most mothers leave the hospital with instructions for their incision, bleeding, and medications. Few leave knowing whether they can safely care for themselves or their newborn. For her OTD Capstone, Dr. Marley Sisler, OTD, OTR/L decided to ask different questions before discharge: Can this mother safely get in and out of bed after birth or surgery? Can she transfer on and off the toilet without increasing pain or risking injury? Can she bathe, dress, and complete daily activities independently? Can she safely lift, carry, soothe, and feed her baby? Does pain, dizziness, weakness, swelling, or fatigue limit her ability to care for herself or her newborn? Does she understand body mechanics and energy conservation for the first days and weeks after birth? Are there functional barriers that could make recovery more difficult once she gets home? These questions are rarely answered during a routine postpartum discharge, yet they often determine whether a mother feels prepared when she walks out the hospital doors. At WVU Medicine Children's, Dr. Sisler identified this gap and helped develop a program where occupational therapists evaluate every patient admitted to the Birthing Center using a preventive, functional approach beginning on postpartum day one. The goal wasn't to find more problems. The goal was to identify barriers before they become complications, improve a mother's confidence caring for herself and her newborn, and ensure she leaves the hospital with the knowledge and skills needed for recovery at home. As more hospitals look for ways to improve maternal outcomes, reduce preventable complications, and deliver patient-centered care, functional rehabilitation is becoming an important part of the conversation that Marley will be having with us. REGISTER HERE

We’re highlighting what can happen when an OT student is taught to do more than treat the next patient on the schedule. Emily Gill used her doctoral occupational therapy capstone at Banner Gateway Medical Center in Arizona to help initiate both OT and PT after Cesarean birth. She worked with nursing leadership, OB providers, and rehabilitation staff to build support for the service, promote referrals, and expand access to rehabilitation for mothers during their hospital stay. Since January 2026, the program has generated 43 referrals, and hospital leadership plans to continue the work after her capstone ends. During this session, Emily will share what she did, who she approached, what helped move the program forward, and what she learned about building an interdisciplinary maternal rehabilitation pathway inside a hospital. Emily is a recent occupational therapy graduate from A.T. Still University whose work focuses on education, program development, and improving access to OT and PT after Cesarean birth. Join us on September 15th at 7 PM ET to hear how one capstone project helped create a pathway for an entire patient population. REGISTER HERE