Today's blog post comes from WebPT co-founder Heidi Jannenga, PT, MPT, ATC/L.

As summer comes to a close (at least for most of the country; it’s still over 100 degrees in Phoenix), many of you may experience a change in your clinic as students go back to school. The return to school is always an exciting time for most, with activities like shopping for back-to-school clothes, anticipating a new curriculum, and gearing up for a new sports season. This is also the time of year when many clinic owners complete their budget for next year. With reimbursements continuing to decrease, continuing education allotments are often the first cuts. Here, I would like to make the case for the importance of continued education.

When hiring anyone, regardless of the role, I look for a candidate who’s thirsty for knowledge. I have always been a proponent of education for myself, whether it’s reading new books, shadowing a physician performing a new technique, or just studying the world around me.

As WebPT continues to grow (we are now up to 95 employees!), it is increasingly more apparent that knowledge is power. Driven by a strong desire to constantly improve both our product and our company, we have maintained an agile work environment that is conducive to learning, growing, and innovating. WebPT strives to be the best EMR solution for rehab therapists while providing exceptional customer service. At the same time, we want to create the best place for our employees to work.

From our Members, we learn about potential workflow improvements via the Idea Portal, site visits, and our Evolve conferences. I love to hear directly from our Members about how we can meet their needs and improve their experience. We offer tools like the Member Network, Knowledge Base, and blog to further educate therapists about WebPT and the profession in general.

As a company, we learn from each other, share ideas, and remain open-minded to new processes and tools that help us be more efficient. Our employees author our core values, and our policy changes happen organically through the people who know the company best. Providing educational opportunities for our employees, whether it’s in development, marketing, or customer service is extremely important. I feel it drives our success in being able to retain top talent and stay current with business trends.

September is a key month for PT clinics. It is usually one of the busiest visit months as we gear up for year-end. We at WebPT are pushing forward with a few more releases in 2012 and planning for 2013. Stay tuned for exciting developments as we continue to be an educational resource for our Members and our employees. In the same vein, I can’t wait to learn more from you, my team, and the rehab community.