The APTA Board has announced actions that are consistent with the work that FOTO has been doing in the area of data collection for the past 13 years and what it has been promoting with payers for the past 4 years, including:

PT Business Relationships Addressed

Looking toward the future of business arrangements related to physical therapist (PT) practice, the APTA Board adopted Principles of Professionalism Guiding Physical Therapist Business Relationships and called for a survey to begin identifying models of practice equity and the factors that influence implementing one model or another. This again reflects the Association's recognition of the profession's move toward autonomous practice as part of Vision 2020. The adopted principles are:

1.     Physical therapists must have control over all clinical decisions relating to physical therapy (autonomy).

2.    Physical therapists should have their compensation based on the value of their services and production (incentive).

3.    Ownership should be proportional to investment and shared risk (equity).

4.    Business relationships must avoid all potential conflicts of interest and comply with all Association policies, positions, and guidelines (integrity).

Collection of Patient Data Important Part of Practice

In amending the Criteria for Standards of Practice for Physical Therapy, the APTA Board of Directors recognized the responsibility of every member to contribute to patient data to meet goals of supporting the evidence base of the practice of physical therapy. This individual responsibility follows the profession's progression toward autonomous practice and evidence-based practice, two of the tenets of Vision 2020.

With clinicians and others outside the research arena purposefully collecting patient data, agreed the Board, references to such activity need to expand outside the research areas of APTA's core documents. To that end, specific changes to the criteria include the addition of: "collection of patient data" under Section IIC, Administration of the Physical Therapy Service, Policies and Procedures; "includes knowledge of clinical research methods and analysis" under Section IIH, Staff Development; and "as appropriate, records patient data using a method that allows collective analysis" under IIIG, Patient/Client Management, Communication/Coordination/Documentation.

The Standards of Practice themselves were initiated and are revised by the House of Delegates; the Board developed and revises the Criteria, which clarify and further define the Standards.

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