Meredith Emmons

Meredith works as a speech-language pathologist and clinical coordinator for Rehab Without Walls in Austin, Texas. She has worked across the continuum of adult healthcare since 2009. Her experience includes skilled nursing; hospital-based settings in large stroke and trauma centers, where she floated between ICU, acute care, inpatient rehab, and outpatient clinics; traditional home health; and since 2016, intensive home and community neurorehab with Rehab Without Walls (RWW). In 2018, she became a certified brain injury specialist (CBIS) and also expanded her role at RWW to include clinical coordination. As a clinical coordinator, she manages treatment teams, coordinates with physicians and insurance, and assists with equipment needs. In 2023, she became lead speech pathologist for her team in Austin.

Each one of these settings and roles has informed and expanded her understanding of the healthcare system and the gaps in support and education our patients experience. Working intensively with people with acquired brain injury in their homes provided context for why people often experience repeat hospitalizations for preventable crises, including and especially managing the complex disease of diabetes. Her first patient at RWW (and several since) was admitted with poorly controlled diabetes and experienced health scares requiring rehab teams to work together quickly to establish systems to better control their diabetes in order to make progress in therapy.

Meredith finds this work extremely rewarding. She is a passionate advocate for using a person-centered approach to empower people with cognitive and communication impairments with the skills and strategies to better coordinate and direct their healthcare. She loves to learn alongside her patients and to encourage her colleagues to use therapy time to explore the rich, functional landscape of treatment options involved in teaching people to navigate our complex healthcare system successfully.