Kettering Health Cuts Wait Times by More Than Half with Medbridge Educate

The Challenge

Reducing wait times for vestibular patients while improving clinician training

Like many health systems, Kettering Health is focused on reducing wait times across patient populations and care specialties. A key area of concern was at the NeuroRehab and Balance Center, the system’s only dedicated neurological and vestibular therapy clinic. Patients faced long delays—as much as 8 to 12 weeks—and often had to travel farther for care. Several factors drove these challenges.

• Limited specialists: Physical therapists typically graduate without extensive specialty training, making it difficult to hire enough vestibular specialists to meet demand.
• Growing patient needs: Kettering’s wide geographic reach and growing population made it harder to provide specialty services at every location.
• Training barriers: Historically, vestibular training required sending clinicians to off-site programs, which were costly and pulled providers away from patient care. This training style meant that only a few clinicians could be trained each year.

Kettering’s clinicians expressed strong interest in vestibular rehab and requested more opportunities to expand their skills, prompting Kettering to explore a new, more effective training solution.

The Solution

Building an in-house training program to grow vestibular expertise across the organization

Kettering launched an in-house vestibular competency program using Medbridge Educate as the foundation. The program includes:

• Expert content: With access to the largest library of continuing education courses, led by industry experts, Kettering had the right foundation to build their program from the ground up.
• Customizable Knowledge Tracks: With the Medbridge Learning Management System (LMS), Kettering developed tailored Knowledge Tracks that they could assign to each new group of cohorts. The LMS allowed them to track progress and ensure mastery.
• Blended learning model: Over nine months, clinicians participated in on-site lectures and labs, live patient care with mentors, and virtual group learning sessions.
• Mentorship and collaboration: Each clinician was paired with an expert vestibular mentor, fostering collaboration and ongoing support beyond structured sessions.

The Results

Cutting wait times by over half while tripling clinician capacity and reducing costs

Since implementing the program, Kettering has enabled more PTs to receive vestibular training across clinics, significantly expanding access to vestibular care and reducing costs. Key results include:

• Wait times reduced by 50–67 percent, from 8 to 12 weeks to just four weeks.
• $27,900 saved annually by hosting the program in-house instead of sending clinicians to off-site training.
• Three times more clinicians trained each year, compared to off-site programs.

With expert specialty care now available in more locations, patients are receiving care closer to home. Referring providers are happier as their patients are getting treated faster, and remote clinics can market vestibular services to their local primary care provider partners.

Kettering also continuously gathers feedback from participants to refine the program, adding more hands-on training with mentors and setting clearer expectations for new cohorts. Clinician feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, highlighting not only skill development and the ability to serve more patients but also the sense of community and ongoing guidance that has resulted from the program.