The PT Movement: #GivingTuesday

This #GivingTuesday, join the PT movement to support those impacted by recent natural disasters. We’re all in this together.

#GivingTuesday—the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving—is tomorrow. And what better way to celebrate than by joining #RehabTherapistsGiveBack—the movement to help individuals, families, and communities impacted by the recent hurricanes and wildfires that devastated areas across the US, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean? Here’s what you need to know about this important opportunity to effect real change:

This was the costliest Atlantic hurricane season ever.

In case there was any doubt, the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season was a lot more intense than it usually is. Within 30 days, four hurricanes—Harvey (Category 4), Irma (Category 5), Jose (Category 4), and Maria (Category 5)—made landfall, devastating families, communities, and cities in the US, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean. In addition to claiming more than 260 lives, these hurricanes caused an estimated $300 billion in damages. Island economists say it may take Puerto Rico more than a decade to fully recover, and, according to The Washington Post, even though the evacuation order has been lifted, the Caribbean island of Barbuda “is a wasteland.” While Texas and Florida are both on the slow road to recovery, many survivors are still displaced—and, in the words of this CNN article, “struggling to make mortgage payments on homes made uninhabitable by the storms, while paying rent somewhere else.” USA Today has deemed this the “costliest Atlantic hurricane season ever.”

It also was one of the worst wildfire seasons in US history.

Around the same time, a host of wildfires broke out across the Pacific Northwest. By September 5, 2017, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho each had at least 234 square miles consumed by fire. Montana, Colorado, and California were also affected, leading news outlets to predict that the 2017 wildfire season would be one of the worst in US history in terms of land destruction. Then, in early October, another string of fires tore through Sonoma, Napa, and Mendocino Counties in California, killing 42 people and consuming more than 245,000 acres, including 6,900 homes, buildings, and wineries. It was the deadliest set of wildfires in the state’s history. According to this Fortune article, the damages from the California wildfires alone will top $3 billion.

It’s up to us to support our friends, colleagues, and fellow humans.

Here at WebPT Headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, we’re lucky not to face much in terms of natural disasters. But, many of our customers—and our employees’ families—experienced the effects of these tragedies first-hand in the form of clinic closures, floods, and evacuations. In fact, at our annual Ascend business summit, Kathy Swanick, President of the Florida Physical Therapy Association, and Felicia Wenah, Houston native and physical therapy student at the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences in Austin, Texas, shared with attendees some personal stories about how this devastation has impacted their respective states.

Let’s band together to raise $1 million to support those in need.

In the wake of all of this destruction and heartache, WebPT decided to take action in alignment with our core value of giving back. As part of our Member Assist program—which we began following the Joplin, Missouri tornado in 2011—we provided affected WebPT Members with the therapy supplies and clinic consumables they needed to get back up and running as quickly as possible. But, given the sheer amount of devastation that’s taken place in such a short amount of time, there’s so much more that needs to be done. That’s why we decided to think bigger. As part of Rehab Therapists Give Back (RTGB), we challenged the entire rehab therapy community to band together and help raise $1 million to benefit those families, communities, and clinics impacted by recent events.

This isn’t a WebPT thing; it’s a rehab therapy community thing.

And we’ve been thrilled with the response from the community. In just one short month, we’ve banked more than $80,000. And we have a whole lot more committed from family, friends, customers, supporters, industry leaders, and even competitors, including the APTA, Chris and Heidi Powell, ATI Physical Therapy, BMS, Casamba, Optima, Performance Health, Clinicient, Rick Gawenda, Hays, Knack, Practice Promotions, ReminderCall.com, ReDoc/Net Health, and the Hoffmans. You see, this isn’t a WebPT thing; it’s a rehab therapy community thing. This outpouring of support really shows that in the presence of a worthy cause—a higher purpose, if you will—the rehab therapy community rallies together and unites for the greater good. We’re all in this together. As rehab therapists—and rehab therapy supporters—we’re driven by a deep desire to help people. It’s why many of us chose to get involved with this profession in the first place. Well, this marks an opportunity—a defining moment, really—to channel that drive into action for people who need us.

We need your help.

While we’re well on our way to meeting our goal, we still have a long way to go. Raising $1 million dollars is no easy feat, but when it’s for something this important, it’s worth the effort. So, please, give what you can—every donation counts—and share this link (https://www.globalgiving.org/rehab-therapists-give-back/) to help spread the word. The more people involved in this, the better.

Now’s the time to widen our lens on health and wellbeing.

This series of unfortunate and tragic events brings up another opportunity for us to reconsider our views on what it means to be healthy. As I explained in last month’s article, there are a number of factors that impact one’s overall health and wellbeing, and only one of those has anything to do with formal healthcare services. At Ascend, Karen DeSalvo—MD, MPH, MSC, the former Assistant Secretary of Health for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—presented a chart outlining the distribution of factors that influence health outcomes. According to that chart, health care only accounts for about 20% of one’s overall health. The other factors include genetics (also 20%) and social, environmental, and behavioral factors (which, together, make up 60%).

As it stands, we may not be focusing enough on the factors necessary to improve health at the population level.

In short, DeSalvo’s point was that we—as an industry, but especially those of us who are on the regulatory front lines—may not be focusing on the factors necessary to really improve population health: “There’s a big mismatch in how we are spending our dollars,” she said. “We’re spending way more on the care itself, and less [on the other contributing factors].” To support her stance, DeSalvo explained to a packed house that for some people, where they live—and thus, their socioeconomic status and ability to access safe housing and reliable transportation—can have a major impact on their health and wellbeing. In some areas, “zip code affects our health more than our genetic code,” she said. And this tidbit she shared is simply staggering: individuals can experience a difference in life expectancy of as much as 25 years from one zip code to the next—25 years.

And these factors impact people outside of the disaster zones every day.

So, in addition to providing excellent health care—which, of course, is still monumentally important—we have a responsibility to step up and create meaningful change in our communities by improving the social, economical, and behavioral factors that we know impact people’s quality of life. The first step may be donating to relief causes to help the communities devastated by the recent natural disasters, but that certainly isn’t the end of the story. While the areas impacted by these types of events get a lot of attention and—thanks to efforts like RTGB—some much-needed assistance, it’s important to recognize that these factors impact many patients outside of the disaster zones every single day.

I have a lot to be thankful for in my life, and I’d imagine most of you reading this have a lot to be thankful for, too. So, this holiday season—and especially this #GivingTuesday—let’s give back to those who need our help the most. Then, let’s widen our lens and make lasting change that improves health and wellbeing at the population level. The time is now.

Originally posted on evidenceinmotion.com