In this episode of Tales from the Pros, Michael Georgiou and Eric Lawrence sit down with Andrew Cherry, COO of Movement for Life, to explore how innovation actually works inside a legacy healthcare organization.
Andrew shares how COVID, clinician burnout, and access challenges forced Movement for Life to rethink traditional physical therapy delivery and why waiting on off-the-shelf solutions was no longer enough. The conversation dives into the cultural, operational, and leadership shifts required to build EverFlex, a custom platform designed to improve patient access, support clinicians, and create measurable business impact.
From change management and internal buy-in to AI’s role in reducing decision errors without replacing human care, this episode offers a candid look at what it takes to lead through uncertainty and why patient experience, not revenue alone, became the guiding metric.
Whether you’re a healthcare leader, operator, or founder navigating innovation in a regulated or legacy industry, this episode delivers practical insight into building technology that scales without losing the human element.
🎯 Highlights You Won’t Want to Miss
- Why Movement for Life chose to build instead of buy healthcare software
- How COVID accelerated telehealth and exposed its limits in physical therapy
- The real challenge of change management inside large organizations
- Why AI should enhance clinicians, not replace them
- How EverFlex generated meaningful ROI in a low-margin industry
- What “PT vigilantes” really means and why ownership mattered
- How patient experience became the driver of sustainable growth
🎧 Listen and Subscribe
💡 Key Takeaways
- Innovation in healthcare requires cultural and leadership alignment, not just technology
- Solving patient access and clinician burnout must happen together
- AI is most valuable as a decision-support tool, not an automation shortcut
- Building custom software can reduce tech sprawl and improve operational efficiency
- Patient trust and engagement increase when technology feels human
- Measured ROI matters, especially in time-for-money industries like physical therapy
🗂 Topics We Cover
- Physical therapy innovation at scale
- Telehealth and remote therapy monitoring post-COVID
- Change management in healthcare organizations
- AI’s role in clinical decision-making
- Patient access, affordability, and experience
- EverFlex’s impact on clinics and clinicians
- Leadership mindset shifts required to innovate
⏱️ Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Andrew Cherry and Movement for Life
03:19 Technology gaps in physical therapy
06:45 COVID, telehealth, and access challenges
09:10 Patient experience vs revenue growth
12:39 Culture shifts and internal product ownership
16:02 Change management and leadership buy-in
20:35 Fear, innovation, and starting the work
26:22 AI’s role in enhancing, not replacing clinicians
32:42 EverFlex ROI and clinic impact
37:30 Where to find Movement for Life and EverFlex
