PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Rehabil. Sci.
Sec. Rehabilitation for Musculoskeletal Conditions
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fresc.2025.1704822
Advancing first-contact, primary care physiotherapist practice: the value of integrating point-of-care diagnostic tools
Provisionally accepted
- 1Winston-Salem State University, Winston-Salem, United States
- 2Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions, Provo, United States
- 3University of Kentucky, Lexington, United States
- 4APTA Academy of Clinical Electrophysiology and Wound Management, La Crosse, United States
- 5University of Washington, Seattle, United States
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Healthcare systems worldwide face mounting challenges, including shortages of primary and specialty care providers, escalating direct and indirect medical costs, and limited access to high-quality diagnostic and interventional services—burdens that disproportionately affect patients in rural or medically underserved areas. Because timely, reliable, and affordable diagnostic and interventional services are essential to comprehensive, lifelong care, the expanding role of physiotherapists as autonomous, first-contact providers represents a critical and timely innovation. This article underscores the value of electrodiagnostic (EDX) testing and ultrasound imaging (USI) as instrumented point-of-care diagnostic tools available to physiotherapists through recognized pathways of training and credentialing and argues for their greater integration into contemporary practice. The authors contend that expanding training opportunities in both entry-level physiotherapy curricula and post-graduate programs will increase physiotherapist utilization of these technologies, strengthen the evidence-based rationale for physiotherapy as a primary care profession, and solidify the discipline's role as an indispensable member of the interdisciplinary healthcare team. By broadening access to EDX testing and USI, physiotherapists can deliver timely and cost-effective diagnostic and interventional services, mitigate barriers created by provider shortages, and help modernize healthcare systems to better meet the demands of strained populations worldwide.
Keywords: Electrodiagnostic testing, First-contact, Point-of-care diagnostic testing, Primary Care, ultrasound imaging
Received: 13 Sep 2025; Accepted: 17 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Savage, Nielsen, Nitz, Rawat and Steiner. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Nathan J. Savage, savagenj@wssu.edu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.