Task Force to Promote the Value Proposition in Academic Physical Therapy
Purpose
- Promote the value proposition for becoming a physical therapist.
- Identify the best methods of reaching prospective students of all age ranges, educate and inspire them to explore a career in physical therapy/attend institution to include considerations from this article:
- Develop ways for academic and clinical faculty, students, and staff to speak up and demonstrate the strategic value of their program to the upper administration, advisory boards, boards of trustees, and clinical partners.
- Develop ways for academic and clinical faculty, students, and staff to speak up and demonstrate the strategic value of their program to current and future prospective students, from (kindergarten) through undergraduate-level programs.
- Identify considerations for programs to leverage community interests so they are valued by community.
- Identify the role of research in promotion of the value proposition in becoming a physical therapist, to include these considerations from the Deusinger and Landers article referenced above:
- Expand profession-wide research initiatives to increase and disseminate evidence demonstrating the economic value of physical therapy services.
- Advance grant support for comparative effectiveness research and studies supporting the value proposition of physical therapy services for health and health care.
Objectives
To achieve its purpose, the Task Force will:
- Identify the barriers for prospective students to pursue a degree in physical therapy.
- Evaluate successful professions inside and outside of healthcare that have clearly demonstrated their value proposition – what are they doing, have done that has resulted in long-term value, high enrollments, etc.
- Work with APTA and their components and other stakeholder organizations including the Student Assembly to maximize the messaging of the values proposition.
- Explore how ACAPT can better integrate with the PT Moves Me campaign.
- Identify what prospective students, parents, faculty, and administration at colleges and universities most value in professional education.
- Determine if career satisfaction survey data is available for physical therapy
- Develop recommendations for academic and clinical faculty, students, and staff to promote the value of physical to any audience (internal to external stakeholders, future stakeholders, etc.)
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The task force is committed to ensuring that its work will be rooted in principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion. By integrating DEI considerations into our work, we aim to address systemic disparities, remove barriers, and foster an environment where all individuals, regardless of their background, have equal access to opportunities and representation within the field of physical therapy.
Outcomes
By following the above objectives, and any others identified, this Task Force will create resources for use by all institutions, which shall include:
- Toolkits and templates that can be used by programs to download, customize, and disseminate to help promote physical therapy as a career and to highlight their individual programs.
- A centralized "campaign" website, showcasing “stories” from the physical therapy profession, and where the above templates/toolkits are housed.
- Resources (physical, digital, etc) that can be used in marketing outreach to schools, community groups, clinical partners that demonstrate the value proposition of a career in physical therapy.
Composition
The Task Force shall not exceed 10 people. The Task Force will seek to have:
- Equal representation of academicians and clinicians.
- A student representative from or identified by the APTA Student Assembly Board of Directors.
- Representatives from research-intensive institutions.
- Representatives from large and small institutions.
- Representation from diverse geographic and practice settings.
The Chair’s primary responsibility will be to ensure the Task Force is meeting its charge as outlined above and within the timeline defined. The Chair will meet quarterly with the Institute Chair and Vice Chair, providing written progress reports on the work of the Task Force.
The Vice Chair will serve as the secretary of the Task Force whose responsibilities include polling for meetings, developing the agenda with the Chair, circulating minutes to Task Force members, staff and the Institute Chair and Vice Chair, and delivering all documents and work products to ACAPT for archiving.
- To ensure diverse engagement and equitable opportunities, no person serving on the Task Force may be serving on another of ACAPT’s volunteer leadership groups unless permission is sought and granted in advance by the Board of Directors.
- The Task Forces are accountable to their Institute Chair and Vice Chair, who are accountable to the ACAPT Board of Directors.
- All who are appointed to the Task Force will receive a letter acknowledging their appointment that may support promotion and/or tenure.
Timeline
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Task force members will meet or communicate at least monthly via conference calls and emails to review tasks completed and next steps to meet project milestones.
- Task force members may meet at CSM in person or virtually. The budget will determine if/what resources are available to support such a meeting.
- The Institute Chair and Vice Chair will conduct a virtual meeting quarterly with all task force chairs and vice chairs within that Institute to evaluate progress on their charge and to address any barriers or potential changes needed to their charge in response to changes in the profession.
- The Task Force will submit information to the Institute Chair and Vice Chair that may reflect their activity during the year and reported in ACAPT’s annual report, which is created in August and disseminated to members electronically in September.
- Task forces should be prepared to discuss their activity with ACAPT members at the Physical Therapy Education Leadership Conference (ELC) during a networking event created for the Institute.
- Task forces are expected to conclude their work by December of the calendar year in which they were created.
- If a task force needs more time than the calendar year for which they were created, the Chair of the task force will notify the Institute Chair. Together, they will evaluate what is causing the delay, evaluate if there are new circumstances informing the work not previously identified, and if there are additional resources needed. If the need for additional time is determined necessary by the Institute Chair, they will submit a request to the Board for an extension, to include how that may impact resources. The Board will make an assessment based on the charge, needed outcomes, and resources available and either extend the work for a limited time, expand the size of the task force to increase productivity to meet the charge and timeline, or disband the task force.
- The final work product(s) will reside on ACAPT’s website and shall be an ACAPT product.
Members
Chair: Nancy Kirsch, PT, DPT, PhD - Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Vice Chair: Monica A Nelsen, PT, DPT - University of Southern California
- Andrew Baldwin, PT, DPT - Mary Baldwin University
- Jessica Garvey, PT - South County Hospital
- Nancy Kirsch, PT, DPT, PhD - Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
- Monica A Nelsen, PT, DPT - University of Southern California
- Mark Wilhelm, PT, DPT, PhD - Tufts University DPT Program - Boston