Physiopedia:About

Mission

Physiopedia will be a resource for rehabilitation professionals throughout the world, offering a place to contribute, share, and gain knowledge. The content of Physiopedia will be driven by experts and represent an evidence-based approach to patient care. As a worldwide site, Physiopedia works to unite physiotherapists and physical therapists from all reaches of our planet.

Aims

Physiopedia aims to be:

1. The online reference source for rehabilitation professionals.
2. A collaborative effort of physiotherapists and physical therapists around the world.
3. A system to unite the views of physiotherapists and physical therapists around the world.
4. A tool for educators to integrate into the teaching of physiotherapy and physical therapy students.
   
5. A learning activity for continuing education and professional development.
   
6. Promoting good evidence based patient care.
7. Promoting the physiotherapy and physical therapy professions.

Reference Source

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Physiopedia is a free online reference source for rehabilitation professionals.  It is an evidence-based resource that includes clinically relevant information for all aspects of physiotherapy and physical therapy practice.  It explores a plethora of clinical specialities and encompasses many aspects of each speciality. Driven by experts and written by physiotherapists and physical therapists it includes clinically relevant information that clinicians will find useful in their practice and in the provision of good patient care.

Collaborative

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Physiopedia is a collaborative effort of physiotherapists and physical therapists around the world.  The site is a wiki, like Wikipedia, but specific to the physiotherapy and physical therapy profession. A wiki is a collection of web pages that can be collaboratively edited with no specialist tools and very little technical know-how.  Although all of the content of Physiopedia can be viewed by anyone, to edit pages and contribute to Physiopedia you will need to be or training to be a physiotherapist or physical therapist[1].  It's easy to edit pages in this wiki. When you are logged in each page has an Edit tab at the top of the page. If you want to change something on the page, click the Edit link, and the wiki will display a simple editing screen. When you finish making changes, click save and your changes show up on the website. Simple!

International

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Physiopedia is a system to unite the views of physiotherapists and physical therapists around the world.  As a website that can be viewed and collaboratively edited from any computer with an internet connection anywhere in the world, can be a global resource and effort.  Although the aim of good patient care is undivided throughout the world, the profession does have divergent approaches to patient care in different parts of the world. This resource will help to unite differing opinions and approaches to patient care however, where differing opinions cannot be resolved in the editing process there is a matching 'Talk' page for every page in Physiopedia where discussions can take place and hopefully views will be united.

Education

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For educators Physiopedia offers an opportunity to involve their students in the creation of this global resource as part of an educational program.  It is anticipated that educators will engage their students to contribute to Physiopedia as part of their learning process and will therefore be used as a tool for educators to integrate into the teaching of students.  For example, the students can be tasked to research specific topics and then record their findings by adding or editing content within physiopedia.  If you are an instuctor interested in learning how to use this wiki in your course, visit our Educators Guide.

Professional Development

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Physiopedia can be used as a learning activity for contributing to the professional development of health professionals.  It can be used at any time and in any place, either in the work place, at home, in your local coffe shop, even when you are travelling overseas, and it is completely free to be use.  Whether just using it as a resource to read and learn from, or by contributing to the content of this resource, physiotherapists and physical therapists will learn from the experience.  This learning can be incorporated into the continual professional development cycle, incorporated into clinical practice and ultimately improve patient care.

Patient Care

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Ultimately Physiopedia is a resource that is conducive to improving patient care.  As an evidence based resource that can be used by clinicians for learning, professional development and evidence based practice our patients will have no choice but to benefit from improved patient care.

For more information you may wish to read the FAQs and also view our acknowledgements page.