A recap from the NARA 2025 Annual Conference presentation on October 16

At this year’s NARA Annual Conference, fall prevention took center stage in a powerful and practical session led by a panel of industry experts. The discussion, titled Redefining Fall Prevention: Scalable Strategies & Smart Technology for Better Outcomes, brought together leaders from across the healthcare ecosystem to explore how clinical innovation, smart technology, and system-level thinking can transform how we prevent falls.

The panel featured:

• Jon Ide-Don, PT, DPT, Head of Clinical Programs at MedBridge
• Stephen Hunter, PT, DPT, OCS, FAPTA, Director of Internal Process Control at Intermountain Health
• Traci Gudenrath, MS CCC-SLP, Vice President of Operations at Choice Rehabilitation
• Pat Tarnowski, PT, MBA, Chief Commercial Officer at OneStep

Together, they shared case studies, system insights, and real-world applications that redefine how fall prevention is approached, moving from reactive to proactive, from episodic to continuous, and from siloed to scalable.

Why Fall Prevention Matters More Than Ever

The numbers are stark: For Intermountain Health alone, one in three adults aged 65+ in their geography falls every year, costing the healthcare system over $20 million annually and ranking as the #1 cause of injury-related death and hospitalization.

Yet despite the known impact, only 3–10% of older adults ever enroll in a structured fall prevention program. Barriers range from limited PCP capacity and poor referral follow-through to lack of patient awareness or engagement.

As Stephen Hunter emphasized, the opportunity isn’t just clinical—it’s strategic. Fall prevention allows rehab leaders to demonstrate the full value of PTs and OTs by preventing costly downstream events while improving patient outcomes and operational efficiency.

Intermountain Health: Building a Scalable, System-Level Model

Intermountain’s approach is a case study in system thinking. With 70,000+ Medicare Advantage members at risk, their fall prevention strategy is built around three pillars:

1. Population Health Campaigns: Targeted email outreach to high-risk patients, driven by analytics, education, and engagement. Their recent campaign sent 32,000 emails, achieving a 46% open rate, 10% click-through, and 8% call-to-action rate. Engaged members saw an 8% reduction in payer cost per member per month.
2. Primary Care Model Innovation: Embedding PTs directly in primary care clinics allows for real-time fall risk screening and onboarding into digital fall prevention programs. Clinicians can then monitor patients remotely, driving higher activation (72%) and an 80% reduction in fear of falling among participants.
3. Standardized PT Protocols: By aligning fall prevention visits with Medicare Annual Wellness Visits and using a 30-minute standardized care model, Intermountain ensures scalable, reimbursable, and evidence-based care delivery.

During the session, the first pillar - Population Health Management - resonated most with the audience, reinforcing key discussions around the expanding role of value-based payment models in rehabilitation. As Jon Ide-Don noted, the key is thinking bigger about what “care” means—every interaction, email, screening, or remote session is a chance to intervene, support, and prevent a fall.

Choice Rehab + OneStep: Turning Mobility Data Into Action

Traci Gudenrath and Pat Tarnowski shared how Choice Rehabilitation partnered with OneStep to transform fall prevention in senior living settings using continuous, smartphone-based gait analysis.

Unlike traditional programs, which rely on periodic and subjective assessments, OneStep captures real-world mobility using a smartphone’s motion sensors, delivering 30+ gait parameters, trend data, and a real-time fall risk score, all without wearables or clinician supervision.

This shift allowed Choice to:

• Implement “Monitoring Mondays”: Weekly standardized assessments across all residents, flagging decline before a fall occurs.
• Launch Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (RTM): Tracking both active and passive walking data to maintain engagement and unlock new revenue streams.
• Drive Resident Engagement: Residents see their own mobility trends, building motivation and ownership over their outcomes.

Real Stories. Real Impact.

Several case studies brought these strategies to life:

• A patient with Parkinson’s showed dramatic improvements across multiple mobility metrics thanks to continuous tracking and targeted therapy, transitioning to skilled maintenance PT to sustain gains.
• In one assisted living site, 60 residents were screened. Ten new fall-risk individuals were identified, six of whom were referred into therapy for proactive care.

Key Takeaways for Rehab Leaders

The session closed with a call to action: It’s time to treat fall prevention as a system-level opportunity, not a side initiative. Leaders should:

• Place PTs & OTs upstream in care settings like PCP clinics and urgent care.
• Leverage technology to scale outreach, enable more patient self activation and continuous monitoring, and streamline workflows.
• Use objective data to justify care extensions, improve documentation, and reduce fall-related costs.

As Pat Tarnowski summarized, “Minor changes in gait can mean major risk, but they’re also an opportunity. When you can measure how people move in real life, you can finally act before the fall. That’s a tangible benefit.”

We are how we move. And when we can measure that—continuously, objectively, and at scale—we can prevent the fall before it happens.