Message from the President

December 19, 2020

Note To Members:

I would like to personally thank the many members and non-members who have attended our educational programs all year. In spite of the hardships imposed by the Pandemic you continue to make our organization a success.  It is our duty to promote the field of hand therapy and to encourage evidence based treatments based on solid research.  Our new virtual education format, born of necessity in these times of COVID,  has allowed us to hire speakers from around the country and around the world. You have repaid us with your excellent attendance and participation.

In order to maintain a high level of excellence in our online presentations we need to spend some funds to make our website more inviting and interactive, and to purchase webinar softwares to offer the most professional presentations possible and to keep attracting high level speakers. Our membership fees have been $35 for many years, but will increase to $50 per year as of January 2021.  I encourage you to sign up for membership for free access to our monthly educational programs and for deep discounts to our Virtual Seminar series.

Our plan is to present our 2020 Conference topic “Finding the Key to Evidence Based Practice” in four  4-hour virtual mini seminars from March through June at a discounted rate for members. The CEUs were  re-approved for 2021 by APTA and CBOT.  Stay tuned for exact dates and information on this “Conference Series” on Evidence based practice. We don’t expect to safely offer live learning by spring 2021 so all presentations will be virtual and on a saturday, pending speaker confirmation.

The 2022 conference is also in the works with a plan to offer a program of hands-on labs and treatment techniques. Browse the website often for more information. By 2022 we hope to return to live learning and meet at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Foster City.

We appreciate your interest and membership, and your willingness to join committees and run for office too!  Let me remind you what your membership dollars provide for us:

• Monthly educational seminars from professional speakers, worth 1-2.5 CEUs each. You can earn enough hours to cover your California Licensure requirement.
• Funding for our annual conference – including honoraria for our speakers, administrative fees, food, hotel fees. The tuition we charge does not begin to cover the entire cost of putting on a live conference. Our large conferences provide 15+ CEU hours to put towards your continuing education requirements.
• Website maintenance, hosting, updated software programs to keep our information encrypted and to allow secure online payments.
• Webinar software to provide you educational programs on current research and topics that interest you, and to keep a professional interface for you and our speakers.
• Doctors and therapists from around the country (and the world!) are interested in speaking at our monthly seminars, thanks to the new virtual format.
• Grant money for research projects and Medical travel to provide hand therapy services
• Prize money for poster presentations and funding for research projects
• Access to vendors willing to offer deals and discounts to HTA-CA members
• A forum to meet other hand therapists, to get beta on the CHT exam, to share ideas about how to treat difficult cases and to keep up on current research in our field.
• Please Note – the privacy of your information is very important to us. We will never sell or give your information to any third party and we maintain the highest security on our website.

Thank you for keeping our organization alive and successful  in this difficult year,

Lori Stotko OTR CHT

President HTA-CA