PORT TOWNSEND — Jefferson Healthcare will acquire Port Hadlock-based Discovery Physical Therapy on Dec. 31.
The clinic will retain its staff and its legacy name by moving forward as Jefferson Healthcare Discovery Rehabilitation, owner Amy Irene Lynch said. It also will stay in Port Hadlock at its current location, 27 Colwell St.
“This partnership allows us to grow our team of providers and enhance the care we offer, ensuring we continue to meet the evolving needs of our community,” said Jake Davidson, Jefferson Healthcare’s chief operating officer, in a news release. “This is a positive and collaborative change that benefits everyone involved.”
“It’s a very mutual win-win for both of us,” Lynch said.
Lynch, who has owned the company for 18 years and worked for the company in its previous iteration as Dirksen Physical Therapy, will continue to run the clinic for Jefferson Healthcare (JH).
She said the partnership will improve access to treatment.
After purchasing the company from her predecessor and mentor Jeannie Dirksen, Lynch was able to grow it initially.
“It grew to a place where I had eight physical therapists. We had an exercise program with exercise instructors. You know, we really were thriving,” Lynch said.
Over time, she experienced difficulty with retaining therapists. The COVID-19 pandemic had a major effect on her workforce, and recruiting employees hasn’t become easier since then, she said.
“I really wanted to increase access to care,” Lynch said. “I saw that we were short-staffed, and it was really hard to get people in, in a timely fashion. Coming together with Jefferson Healthcare, they have a bigger presence and a bigger voice to be able to recruit and bring people in.”
The partnership benefits JH in its efforts to provide more services in the county, Lynch said.
The transition will roll out in the coming months. Likely around the end of March, systems will be in place. JH will handle administrative work, such as billing, and it will handle facility maintenance and support operations, including laundry and cleaning.
“We can really just focus on patient care,” Lynch said.
The partnership will increase Discovery’s collaborative work with other departments at JH as the clinic will gain access to relevant medical records and be able to share notes with other providers via Epic Systems.
Lynch said she is eager to embrace the opportunity to better connect with the medical community.
Lynch said she always knew she wanted to pursue something in medicine.
“From the time I was little, I was heading into the medical field,” she said.
As a teenager, she was in a serious car accident.
“I had physical therapy and I was like, ‘This is it,’” Lynch said. “You get to help people without surgery and without medication, and you teach people what to do to help themselves.”
Lynch’s connection to the profession has remained steadfast, for all of the same reasons that she was initially inspired by to pursue it.
“I love what I do,” she said. “I get to teach people how to help themselves through movement and how they hold their bodies and exercises and how they carry out their activities of daily living.”
The impact of the work often is things like the patients being able to work to provide for their families, Lynch said. They’re able to participate in the activities that bring them joy, and they are able to maintain independence, she added.
People with physical jobs, like construction workers, recovering their capacity to work is a daily story at Discovery PT, Lynch said.
A recent patient who came in with a back injury helps take care of her three young grandchildren every weekend.
“She’s got to be able to help care for these kids,” Lynch said. “In three treatments, I was able to work with her on how she was picking up the toddler, I was able to work with her and how she was picking up toys off the ground, I was able to work with her on how she positions herself to drive two hours to pick them up. Within three treatments, she’s able to do all of that.”
Through proper technique, the patient is able to bend, lift and position herself in the vehicle in a way that allows her to carry out the core life function. She also knows how to heal herself, Lynch said.
Early in her career, Lynch discovered women’s health and what would become her specialty area, pelvic physical therapy.
Lynch works with patients of all ages and genders to treat bowel and bladder issues, pelvic pain and provide post-surgical rehabilitation.
Lynch learned early on that women are underserved, particularly in pregnancy and postpartum, a time when their bodies are recovering from a significant and amazing life event, she said.
“It’s really common for women in pregnancy to struggle with back pain and pelvic pain,” Lynch said. “So teaching them specific exercises, ways to position themselves for sleeping and sitting and body mechanics for picking up their other little ones.”
The clinic works with pregnant women, helping them prepare for labor and delivery.
They use bio feedback to help women understand how their pelvic floors work so they can relax them during delivery. After the babies are born, they work with women to strengthen the muscles involved in the birth through various techniques. Specific exercises go well beyond kegels, Lynch said.
“So that they can maintain their continence, their pelvic organ support, return to intimacy without pain, and so there’s a lot that we offer in educating women on how to recover and take care of themselves,” Lynch said.
Eighty percent of people who use physical therapy to address pelvic issues see improvements, Lynch said.
As she continued to pursue the specialty, she realized more attention is needed for women later in life as well.
“We’re really not doing anything to help women transition through menopause, for example, and all of the massive transitions that happen there,” Lynch said.
As women age and their bodies produce significantly less estrogen, their bone density lessens, Lynch said.
Discovery offers rehabilitative services for men as well, Lynch said.
Following prostate surgery, physical therapy can reduce incontinence in men from a year to three months, Lynch said.
Physical therapy is about addressing the body, but for Lynch, it’s also about education and trust.
When people understand what’s happening in their bodies and what the path forward looks like, it changes how they experience pain, she said. In addition to working with the body, the process is also about helping the brain feel safe in the process.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.
