DIANNE JEWELL

Dianne Jewell’s work as a physical therapist and administrator has not just been about helping patients but also her colleagues.

In 2011, Jewell founded the Rehab Intelligence Network, which helps rehabilitation practices use data to demonstrate the value of their services, and served as its CEO for a decade.

“Health care is awash in data of all kinds,” she says. Her goal in founding the network was to help her colleagues in the medical field sort through available data to be able to better use it for their work.

All the while, however, she was still involved with Sheltering Arms — and became its president and CEO in 2021. Jewell, who has been a physical therapist since 1989, joined Sheltering Arms in 1993 and was its director of quality management from 1998 to 1999 before becoming a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. She later went on to serve on Sheltering Arms’ board of directors, serving from 2009 through December 2020. Jewell served as a director of clinical practice, outcomes and education for BMS Practice Solutions, and then WebPT after its acquisition of BMS. 

Jewell has also served on the boards of the PCPI Foundation, the American Physical Therapy Association and the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation.

Jewell was also a faculty member at VCU for 11 years and has continued to serve adjunct roles at other universities.

“I am somebody who loves the variety of opportunities that come my way. I think that would be true, even if I wasn’t a physical therapist,” she says. “The fact that I could be a clinical practitioner, be an educator and administrator, be a CEO, be a board member — all of that fuels my interest and different experiences.”