Return-to-play milestone and reassessment monitor
Problem
Athletes working through a return-to-play pathway after injury are tracked on a physio's own rehab plan, printed or kept in a personal spreadsheet, with progress relayed to the Head of Performance through a message or a corridor conversation. Reassessment dates exist in the physio's diary, not anywhere the wider staff can see. When a reassessment slips by a week because the physio is travelling with the squad, nobody notices until someone asks why an athlete is still in modified training three weeks after they were expected back. The stage an athlete is actually at and the stage the coaching staff believe they are at quietly diverge, and a return-to-training decision gets made on a stale assumption rather than the current state.
Product idea
A live board, one row per athlete currently in a return-to-play pathway, showing their current stage, the date they entered it, the next milestone due, and days until or past that date. Stages and expected durations are configured per protocol rather than hard-coded, because protocols vary by injury type and by club. When a milestone passes its due date without a recorded update, the board flags it amber then red and pushes an alert to a named person — typically the Head of Performance or the physio covering that athlete. It shows state and staleness only: it does not set return-to-play criteria and does not clear an athlete to train. That decision, and the clinical judgement behind it, stays with the medical staff who currently make it.
Who it is for
Sports scientists and strength & conditioning coaches managing day-to-day rehab load, and the Head of Performance who sponsors it and needs to know before a return date quietly slips.
Possible first version
A single-page board with a configurable stage list per injury type, manual entry of stage, entry date and next milestone per athlete, and colour-coded flags for on-track, due soon and overdue. Overdue milestones generate an email alert to a named owner. Entry is manual by the physio or sports scientist — version one does not integrate with the medical records system or the athlete management system, and it stores no clinical detail, only stage, dates and status. Historical stage changes are logged for a simple audit trail.
- Build classification
- Workflow application
- Rough effort
- 4-6 week first release
- Roles involved
- Head of Performance, Sports scientist, Strength & conditioning coach
- Relevant to
- Professional club, Collegiate athletics, Academy & youth, Women's league
- Systems in play
- Medical and injury records, Athlete management systems, Spreadsheets
- Product framing
- Monitor
Questions we get asked
What do we need to have in place before this is actually useful?
An agreed stage list and expected duration per injury type, and a named owner for each athlete currently in the pathway. Without that, the board is just a prettier spreadsheet. Most rehab groups already run something like this informally in a physio's notes — the work is writing it down as a shared structure once, not per athlete, and keeping it current as protocols change.
Does this replace our medical records system?
No. The medical records system stays the system of record for clinical detail — diagnosis, treatment notes, imaging, sign-off. This board deliberately holds none of that: only which stage an athlete is in, when they entered it, and whether the next milestone is on track. It sits alongside the medical record rather than duplicating it, which is also why version one does not integrate with it.
Our physio already tracks this on a spreadsheet that works fine — why change it?
If one physio manages a handful of rehabbing athletes and nobody else needs visibility, the spreadsheet probably is fine and this would not be worth building. The value shows up once more than one physio or coach is involved, or once the Head of Performance needs to know an athlete's status without asking around. If that is not your situation yet, this is not for you yet either.
What does it deliberately not do?
It does not set return-to-play criteria, does not decide when an athlete is cleared, and does not advance a stage automatically — a person records that a milestone was met. It only surfaces state and staleness: whose reassessment is overdue and by how much. The clinical judgement stays entirely with the medical staff who make it today.
Is this your workflow?
Tell us one sports workflow that still runs on paper, spreadsheets, WhatsApp or an outdated system. We will map it and show you what a simpler product looks like.
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