Physical therapy is the rare clinical business that deliberately sends its equipment home with patients. TENS units, crutches, braces, and cold therapy devices leave the building every week on nothing firmer than a verbal “bring it back when you’re done” - and a meaningful share never comes back. Add treatment rooms that share one ultrasound machine, a gym floor where everything migrates, and home-visit therapists with kit in car boots, and a PT clinic has an equipment tracking problem worthy of a business ten times its size. This guide covers how to run the register, the loaner pool, and the maintenance dates without adding admin to anyone’s day.
What you will learn
- Three places PT equipment lives
- What goes on the register
- Run the loaner pool like a library
- Electrical safety and servicing
- Getting started
- Where AMPthilly fits
- FAQ
Three places PT equipment lives
A clinic’s kit splits across three territories, each with its own failure mode:
- Rooms and the gym floor. Shared by every therapist on shift, so the portable ultrasound is wherever it was last used and the goniometer is in someone’s pocket. Cost: minutes lost per session, sessions delayed.
- Therapists’ cars. Home-visit kits are complete and accounted for exactly once - the day they are assembled. After that, items swap between bags, get left at the clinic for charging, and quietly go missing until the therapist is off sick and nobody can reconstruct what they carry.
- Patients’ homes. The loaner pool is the leak that never announces itself: each unreturned TENS unit or pair of crutches is a small loss, and they compound monthly. Worse, the pool shrinks invisibly, so the clinic keeps buying loaners without ever deciding to.
The common thread is that equipment changes hands more often than anything gets written down. The fix is making the handover the record.
What goes on the register
Per-item records for anything you would search for, service, or chase:
- Treatment furniture - electric hi-lo plinths and treatment tables, traction units.
- Modality machines - therapeutic ultrasound, TENS and EMS units, shockwave, laser, hydrocollators. These carry the clinic’s electrical safety and servicing dates.
- Exercise and gym equipment - treadmills, bikes, rowers, cable machines, dumbbell sets (as sets), balance and rehab equipment.
- Assessment tools - goniometers, dynamometers, inclinometers. Small, shared, and exactly the items that vanish into pockets.
- The loaner pool - TENS units, crutches, walkers, braces, cold therapy units, each individually labelled, plus spare batteries and charging packs for the powered loaners, tracked as a kit per unit.
- IT and the building - tablets used for exercise programmes, laptops, and the practical extras a clinic forgets it owns.
Bands, tape, and gels are consumables - stock levels at most, never the register. Larger rehab providers and small hospitals draw the same line; the register only stays alive if everything on it deserves a record.
Run the loaner pool like a library
A loan is a checkout to a named patient with a due date - that single sentence is most of the system. A signed-out list with dates is also a basic internal control: it is what makes the pool’s shrinkage visible and attributable instead of ambient.
| Loaner | Loan style | Return trigger |
|---|---|---|
| TENS / EMS units | Due date tied to the treatment plan | Chased at the next appointment after due |
| Crutches and walkers | Open-ended | Reviewed at discharge |
| Braces and supports | Often dispensed, not loaned | Decide per item - sold items never enter the pool |
| Cold therapy units | Short, fixed loans | Condition check on return |
Three habits make it work:
- Label every loaner individually - “a TENS unit” can never be chased; “TENS unit 07, checked out to J. on the 14th” can.
- Capture condition on return, in ten seconds: working, complete, pads need replacing. Faulty units go to repair, not back on the shelf.
- Review the overdue list weekly and chase at the patient’s next appointment - which is the cheapest, least awkward moment to ask.
Tip: decide per item type whether it is loaned or dispensed, and never blur the two. Braces that patients keep should be sold and treated as stock; the loaner pool is only for items you genuinely expect back. Mixed expectations are how pools evaporate.
Electrical safety and servicing
Electric plinths, modality machines, and gym cardio equipment are powered devices used by and on patients. That means periodic electrical safety testing, manufacturer servicing, and - for some modalities - output calibration checks. The clinic that keeps these dates on each machine’s own record, with reports attached, gets two things: a monthly due-soon list instead of a renewal surprise, and a defensible history if a device is ever questioned. Repair history doubles as the replacement signal - the hydrocollator with three logged faults is a budgeting decision made visible. Suppliers will service what you bought from them; medical equipment suppliers keep the same per-unit service histories on their side, and your register is what lets you check theirs.
Getting started
- List the loaner pool first - it is the smallest category with the fastest payback. Serial, photo, label, record.
- Sweep rooms and the gym floor room by room; a structured walkthrough like this asset inventory checklist adapts in an afternoon.
- Assemble car kits on the record - each home-visit therapist’s set checked out to them by name.
- Move the dates - electrical testing and service dates from binders onto the machines’ records.
- Start one habit: nothing leaves with a patient without being checked out to them.
Where AMPthilly fits
AMPthilly maps closely onto a PT clinic’s shape. Loaners are checked out to patients with a due date - patients can be set up as clients, external assignees who exist in the register without seeing anything but their own items - and the clinic works from one overdue list. QR labels print from the system and open the asset in any phone browser: scan a plinth to report a fault with a photo, and the ticket stays on its history. Returns capture who, when, and condition. The free plan covers 3 users and 25 assets with no card required - a realistic pilot for the loaner pool alone; see pricing for clinic-wide tiers.
FAQ
How do PT clinics track loaner equipment like TENS units and crutches? As checkouts to named patients with due dates, individually labelled units, condition captured on return, and a weekly overdue review.
What equipment should a physical therapy clinic track? Plinths, modality machines, gym equipment, assessment tools, the loaner pool, and IT. Bands and tape are consumables.
How do you keep treatment tables and modality machines compliant? Electrical safety tests, servicing, and calibration checks on each machine’s record, reviewed from one due-soon list monthly.
Do exercise bands and small props belong in the asset register? No - high-churn consumables clog the register. Track stock levels at most.
How do home-visit physiotherapists keep track of their kit? Each car kit is checked out to its therapist by name, and swaps are recorded transfers.
The takeaway
PT equipment leaves the building by design, so the register has to be built around handovers: loaners checked out to patients with due dates, car kits checked out to therapists, safety and service dates on each machine, and condition captured at every return. Start with the loaner pool - it is where the invisible losses live - and the rest of the clinic follows the same pattern.