How technologies will potentially transform the future of physiotherapy (Part 3/3 Series)

No industry or technology expert in the world can accurately predict how emerging technologies will impact the future of physiotherapy in say 7-10 years. However, based on studying current startups, innovation research and marketing offerings, you could safely make an educated guess that the future of physiotherapy will be likely more consumer driven, digitised, data-driven and outcomes driven, AI assisted as well as a greater mainstream adoption of telehealth delivery models. Physiotherapists will need to eventually adopt a valued based healthcare approach, where they will need to demonstrate to payers that they are delivering positive outcomes relative to cost. 

The following is one personal interpretation of how technology will change the future of technology and should not be considered as “gospel”, but more as a guide to stimulate creativity juices, innovative mindset but at least be thought provoking. It will attempt to visualise a patient and physiotherapy clinician journey in 7-10 years, starting from a patient query.

1. The “consumer” (or patient) injures him or herself so makes a search query on Google on their symptoms. 

The first point of contact for the consumer (will likely be a digital symptom checking tool or an AI-enabled conversational chatbot. This will likely consider specific personal health data that the “consumer” can upload securely. Suggestions from the outcome of using such tools will likely result in the consumer doing further information to research on the possible conditions. There will likely be a rich source of credible and non-credible sources available online from articles to videos to learn about this, as well as book a telehealth booking to quickly discuss their problem with a health practitioner. 

2. The “consumer” will likely have a large range of healthcare services choice available to them with transparency in regulated reviews, transparency in pricing and outcomes based on specific health conditions or specialties. 

Consumers will have easy access to customer service reviews, useful insights of clinical outcomes from practitioners for specific conditions as well as fairly reflected pricing. There will likely be a choice between in-person, telehealth delivery approaches or hybrid based on the “consumers” preference, reporting symptoms and the potential health concern. Consumers will have access to an app or online booking system to make an appointment with the relevant practitioner. Payments will likely be transparent, automated and digitised without consumers needing to bring their credit card or health insurance card to the appointment. 

3. Prior to the physiotherapy consultation, consumers will be able to securely share health data with the practitioner including wearable data which measure activity levels, stress, nutrition, sleep and perhaps the government’s My Health Record depending on its evolution.

Such personal health data will likely be processed by an AI assisted clinical decision making support tool used by the practitioner which can help them make accurate and holistic clinical decisions about the client. 

Physiotherapists will be likened to clinical “data analysts” who are digital literate and have basic training in AI and data science to support their clinical skills. 

Data visualisation and clinical decision making support tools will likely support the physiotherapist in diagnosis, developing treatment plans, and prescribing content and exercise programs, which is already happening today. 

4. The human elements of the physiotherapy service still remain critical complementing digital tools. 

To maintain the highest quality and safety of clinical services, physiotherapists will still be expected to possess exception soft skills, perform physical examinations where appropriate, develop rapport and empathy with clients, and assist clients to change behaviour through coaching, touch and various forms of communication, that cannot be replicated by a robot or technology. 

Clinical notes will likely be recorded by advanced voice recognition systems, that will also prompt physiotherapists to query specific queries that the physiotherapist may have missed or not been aware of based on data-driven analytics. 

5. Self-management plans will likely be monitored remotely by digital technologies

Content and exercise prescription software, outcome measure tracking (patient reported outcome and experience measures) and telehealth platforms (smartphone apps, video and messaging methods) will likely be commonly used to monitor and follow up clients remotely by physiotherapists, and potentially escalate to in person consultations where necessary. 

6. AI and data driven technologies will likely assist physiotherapists in recommending the continual professional development courses they need to undertake to optimise health outcomes 

Data analytics technologies will likely be able to provide specific and personalised recommendations to physiotherapists on what online CPD courses they will need to undertake to improve health outcomes for the communities they serve, in a more effective and focused manner. 

Key questions to ponder over when considering a data-driven physiotherapy future:

1. Who owns the data, how is it shared and the level of permissions? 
2. What are the medicolegal and professional responsibilities of the physiotherapist when they have access to such personal health data?
3. Can the data be used to penalise or incentivise physiotherapists based on relative performance and benchmarks?
4. What human elements are in fact crucial in a physiotherapy service to optimise health outcomes and what should be automated?