Hand Therapy Week: Ready, Set, Promote!

Posted by Heidi Hermann Wright, MBA, OTR, CHT 05/25/2016

Hand Therapy Week (June 6-12) is less than two weeks away. We encourage you to start planning now to promote Hand Therapy Week in your clinic and in your community.

Launched in 1993, Hand Therapy Week is an effort to increase public awareness of our advanced specialty. In 2015, we saw our BEST participation ever! Let’s see if we can increase activity even more this year. Reach out to your patients, referral sources and community and then shout about it on social media by posting to ASHT's Facebook page, tagging ASHT on Twitter (@HandTherapyASHT) and using #HTW2016 to share your posts and see what others are doing.

We will again be holding our ASHT Photo Contest and our "Celebrate and Win!" contest, and we have some great prizes to reward members who participate!

  • Submit your Photo Contest entries to ASHT@asht.org by May 30. Voting will take place on our Facebook page during Hand Therapy Week. 
  • Send a photo, video or link of your 2016 Hand Therapy Week celebrations to ASHT@asht.org by June 22, 2016 and you'll be entered to win. Participants and their submissions will be acknowledged on the ASHT website and social media channels.

There are many excellent ideas listed on our Hand Therapy Week page. A few we’ve tried in our clinic that have been successful include a proclamation at the mayor’s office, an open house for patients and local community members, baking “hand” cookies and distributing flyers for referring physicians. 

You can also spread hand therapy awareness by gaining coverage in your local media. Watch this short video and be inspired by some tips for writing a short article for your local publications 

We hope you will try one or several of these ideas this year to spread the word about our valuable profession of hand therapy. Together we can achieve more!

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