Alum teaching therapists to utilize telehealth during pandemic 

By Ryan Clark 
CHS Communications Director 

5 questions with … Tori Schaub, APT 
 

Tori Schaub remembers the exact moment when the world — and her life — changed.  

It was January 2020, and Schaub, a 28-year-old speech pathologist at Associates in Pediatric Therapy in Louisville, was called to a meeting with her co-workers and their CEO. The message? That the new virus they’d heard about, COVID-19, could affect their business. 

It could actually prove to change their entire model, as well as others in the medical community. And if it caused the kinds of problems they thought it could, then Associates in Pediatric Therapy would have to transition — quickly — to utilize more telehealth options, where the professionals could counsel and help their patients in a virtual format.  

Immediately, Schaub was forced to become wise beyond her years. Fortunately in 2016, she’d found the telehealth topic interesting, so she studied it under UK’s Joneen Lowman, PhD, CCC-SLP. One of the topics? How to implement telehealth for your company.  

“We were very lucky to have a foundation — I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like to try to start telehealth from scratch,” said Schaub, who graduated from UK in 2017 with a degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders. “We had software and we had a training program that I’d developed from what I’d learned at UK. And even then, it was still a challenge to transition.” 

Now, Schaub’s knowledge has become even more vital. As the COVID-19 pandemic raged over the past year, she was able to help her business, as well as others, transition to telehealth. It’s become a huge part of her job — she even added the title of Telehealth Program Developer — and she’s thankful for how UK’s CHS prepared her for a world she could’ve never imagined. 

“I knew it was a thing that was growing, and so I thought it might be a good time to try something new,” she said. “And Dr Lowman is really smart — I totally trust what she brings to the table. She was very forward-thinking in developing that program.” 

A year later, we’ve caught up with Schaub to hear how she’s doing, how the business is still adapting, and how learning the best telehealth methods from early practicing experts like Lowman at UK will be crucial for all medical personnel going forward. 

Here’s five questions with … Tori Schaub, APT: 
 

How did you get interested in Speech Therapy? 

I always thought the one thing I wouldn’t become, was a speech therapist. My mom was a school speech therapist for years, and she always loved her job, I just thought I wanted to do something different with my career. I was pursuing social work — that's what I really wanted to do — but I was not strong enough to be a social worker. I was like tearing up in my classes, because it was sad. It’s a really hard job, and I respect everyone in that field, but you don't have as much of a direct impact as a social worker.

I wanted something that was a little more hands-on. 

I took one intro to communication sciences and disorders class and figured out that as a speech therapist, you don’t just have to work in a school setting. You can be in hospitals and nursing homes — you can work with adults or very young children.  

I really liked having that diverse set of options. 
 

How did you get involved in learning about Telehealth? 

When I was at UK I studied under Joneen Lowman — she had started a new program called LinKS, and it was linking kids to speech and language services. 

Part of our clinical experience was to go out to rural areas and practice telehealth with the children on-site. 

I remember when she brought up telehealth it wasn't something that I had heard about very much at other universities. You know, I went to a different university for undergrad andso it was not really talked about a whole lot there. 

So part the clinical education was how to provide high quality telehealth services and implement them at a metaphorical company. When I was hired at my company and they wanted to start a telehealth program, I was the only person that had the qualifications to do that. 

The primary purpose of our program is to increase access to care.  

My boss at Associates in Pediatric Therapy said she’d been wanting to engage in telehealth for a very long time, but she really didn't have a lot of people on board. 

It’s not something totally different from what we’d been doing — it's still speech therapy, it's just a different medium that we're doing it through, so you have to think a little bit differently. 

You're still doing your job, it’s just a bit different. 
 

What led to your relationship with Dr. Lowman?

She’s actually one of the hardest teachers. (laughs) 

She’s like, the smartest woman. She works so hard and everything she says is right. She's just a very impressive person. 

So I had a couple of classes with her, and I’m not even sure I did that great in any of those classes.  

But she had developed that LinKS program, and it just seemed like a good opportunity that I wanted to be involved in. Technology continues to become a bigger part of our lives, so it seemed like a good time to get involved in something like this. I was like, ‘I guess i'll just try it and see what happens.’ 

Being a part of that program was an incredible experience.  
 

A lot of people were kind of fumbling in the dark when it came to trying to transition their treatment to telehealth. They didn’t have your expertise. How important is it to learn how to do telehealth the right way? 

I know — we were willing to work with people at other companies if they needed help. We have the resources and we have the training that other people don’t have.

We know the laws, the state laws, the interstate laws. We stay on top of all that stuff and it's really important that you're really careful about all of that. 

A lot of therapists can be intimidated by it, because it feels so different, and it seems like it might be harder to do, or it might not be as effective but I, I personally feel that comes back on the therapist.

Sometimes when you’re forced to think outside the box, you may find something out about your therapy that you could improve on. The model may not be a good fit for every patient, but for some it is really beneficial.
 

What’s your pitch to those interested in telehealth? 

Before COVID, I was the only one that was really pushing this, and most people weren’t really interested. I was so young, I was very new to the company when we started developing our tele program. It was really hard to tell people who have been doing therapy a lot longer than me that they should try something totally different from what they’ve been doing.  It was helpful to have the support from my boss and Dr. Lowman.

But in the past year, I have really felt like a spotlight was on me and this program. People were starting to see how important high quality telehealth services are, and it was made especially clear by the pandemic. None of us ever thought that there would be a time that we could not safely do our jobs as therapists. Telehealth was the only way we were able to safely serve our patients and families, and make sure that they did not miss out intervention during crucial opportunities in their development. Telehealth was the only way we were able to see patients for several months. And we are so thankful that we were prepared for that transition.  I really wanted to make sure everybody felt prepared to do this because I didn't want to just be like, ‘Okay everybody, go do telehealth now.’ 

I think now that this unfortunate situation has pushed people who may have been intimidated before to try telehealth. Now, they are more comfortable, they see it’s not something scary just because it is different, they now understand how it can be a useful tool even outside of its necessity during COVID closures.

We’re not totally where we want to be yet — we want to have a larger group stronger component of therapists that are really skilled in this type of service delivery model. And we are looking now to build up so we can reach more areas and schools that may not have easy access to services.  

I feel like it’s incredibly important to learn about this, so that if something like this past year comes up, you're ready, you’re able to keep serving. But I also hope that people continue to recognize the utility of this type of service, outside of just necessity. As therapists, we provide the tools, but we really need families and patients on board so that they can use these tools effectively outside of just our weekly sessions. Telehealth gives us the opportunity to get to our patients in their most natural environment, their home. If patients are children, or in the care of someone else, telehealth allows us to empower their caregivers to use our strategies, since it requires us to be much more hands-off. Telehealth pushes us to be more effective communicators, and to communicate about your practice, you have to have a deeper understanding of it.

And it’s important to get this training from someone who knows the subject — someone like Dr. Lowman, who knew this was important before anyone else.  

We have the opportunity to do a lot of good in Kentucky. There's a lot of need in the surrounding rural areas, so I’m excited that our University is leading the way. 

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The CHS Certificate in Telehealth is now accepting applications. The deadline to apply for UK’s Graduate School is April 16. For the next month, look for more stories highlighting telehealth, our students and our faculty.  

Apply here.  

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It’s been nearly a year since COVID-19 first began to change our lives, so here in the College of Health Sciences, we are taking time to celebrate our health and well-being, while also to honor those we’ve lost along the way. 

We are publishing a series of stories that will celebrate our faculty, staff, students and alumni. Never have we been challenged in the ways we were over the past year. We are determined that we will not forget. And we will persevere.

#GoCATSBeatCOVID