Logan Plummer, a freshman soccer player for Beech High School, takes advantage of DartFish technology.

Baptist Sports Medicine — one of the area’s largest providers of outpatient rehabilitation, preventative athletic care and sports medicine services — continues to expand its reach by opening new locations and adding technology.

Since the end of April BSM, a division of Saint Thomas Health Services, has won the Williamson County Schools contract to provide athletic training services, opened clinics in Green Hills and White House, partnered with the Gordon Jewish Community Center, and expanded its use of the Dartfish software program.

Williamson County Schools

The partnership, which began July 1, allows Baptist Sports Medicine to provide athletic training services for all sanctioned sports in the Williamson County School System. A certified athletic trainer has been assigned to each high school with additional responsibility for the related middle school. Prevention, evaluation, care and rehabilitation are the focus for the trainers working with young athletes. In addition, a team physician has also been assigned for high school football games.

Orthopaedic surgeon David R. Moore, MD, has responsibility for Ravenwood High School. Part of Elite Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center, one of the practices affiliated with BSM, Moore’s job doesn’t end with the final snap of the game. “We always hope for a quiet Friday night, but it doesn’t always work out that way,” he noted. “That’s why we’re going to start a Saturday morning clinic from 8-10 a.m.”

He said the clinic, which will be run out of Elite’s Williamson County office in the Cool Springs area, will allow physicians to do follow-up imaging studies to better assess injuries. “How an athlete looks on Friday night isn’t necessarily how they look on Saturday … 12 hours later,” he noted. X-ray capabilities will be available on site at the clinic, and Baptist Hospital will make weekend MRIs possible.

Moore said he finds continuity of care is comforting to young athletes and their families. In the very first scrimmage, an athlete sustained an injury that warranted hospital admission. Moore, who cared for the teenager on the sidelines, followed up at the hospital and performed surgery the next day. “I think it’s nice for the kids to see a familiar face,” he said.

In addition to Elite, physicians with Tennessee Orthopaedic Alliance also have sideline responsibilities.

Expanded Outpatient Rehabilitation

Baptist Sports Medicine and Life Therapies, the two divisions that comprise Saint Thomas Health Services’ Outpatient Rehabilitation, opened clinics in Green Hills and White House this summer. Both clinics offer physical therapy, sports/orthopaedic rehabilitation, lymphedema therapy, neurological rehabilitation and vestibular rehabilitation. As part of its sports medicine program, the Green Hills clinic, located on Bedford Avenue, features concussion rehab and running assessments and will soon expand offerings to include speech and occupational therapy.

The White House clinic was the first to open as part of a new partnership with not-for-profit group BH1. The joint venture with BH1 calls for the creation of up to 15 new Baptist Sports Medicine and Life Therapies clinics over the next 18 months. The new clinics are planned throughout Tennessee and into northern Alabama and southern Kentucky, although specific markets have not yet been named.

In early August, an open house was held to celebrate the partnership between Baptist Sports Medicine and the Gordon Jewish Community Center to offer outpatient rehabilitation services to both GJCC members and the general public. Orthopaedic physical therapy, aquatic therapy, sports medicine and back, neck and spine pain therapy are offered on Tuesday and Thursdays. The first Monday of every month has been reserved for onsite injury assessment.

Dartfish Data Aids in Prevention, Proper Rehab

The cutting-edge Dartfish video software program was added to the main BSM clinic in late 2009 to help therapists and trainers identify and measure abnormal movement patterns often associated with injury. 

Kevin Robinson, PT, DSC, OCS, a professor in the Physical Therapy program at Belmont University and a therapist with BSM explained the Dartfish analysis software system allows therapists to take measurements of joint angles with a simple digital video camera.

Recently, Robinson and colleagues employed the software in a pilot project aimed at injury prevention. “Female athletes tear their anterior cruciate ligament more often than males. Depending on which article you read, it’s anywhere from three to seven times more frequently,” he said. The ACL Prevention Project, which launched at the beginning of 2010, gathered data on a group of 20 high school athletes — 18 females and two males.

After capturing baseline data in January on performance measures including vertical leap and timed shuttle run, trainers devised a program and worked with the athletes over an eight week period to strengthen key muscles. “The program targeted muscles of their hips and core … their abdominals,” Robinson explained. In June, the athletes were re-measured. “What we found was that of the kids who completed the training, the average increase in vertical jump was four inches. The average change in the shuttle run was 1.2 seconds quicker. The angles we measured with Dartfish improved, too,” Robinson said.

With the portability of Dartfish, athletic trainers and therapists have the luxury of being able to collect video data on athletes in a variety of settings. “Dartfish is used for anything from swinging a golf club to shooting hoops to running on a treadmill,” Robinson said. He added the software is being used both for both primary and secondary prevention by correcting angles and stances to help athletes avoid injury or re-injury.

As the team found with the ACL Prevention Project, Dartfish not only is helping avoid injury; but by strengthening muscles and correcting form, athletes are seeing gains in performance. “A lot of times if you just show an athlete what they’re doing, they get it. A picture is worth a thousand words,” Robinson concluded.

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