National Athletic Training Month 2026
Make dependable injury prevention, emergency readiness, clinical coordination, and rehabilitation visible across every setting athletic trainers serve.
Care you can count on needs a system behind it.
NATA’s 2026 theme for National Athletic Training Month, “Care You Can Count On,” was chosen by members and speaks directly to reliability. Athletic trainers work in schools, colleges, workplaces, clinics, hospitals, and professional sports, and they are trained in injury prevention, emergency care, and rehabilitation. For health-system leaders, the theme raises a practical question: can the system behind those clinicians be counted on too?
Athletic trainers are a meaningful and growing part of the clinical workforce. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports 35,200 athletic trainer jobs in 2025, with a master’s degree as the typical entry-level education, and projects 13 percent employment growth from 2025 to 2035. Many health systems already employ or contract athletic trainers for school, community, and occupational health programs.
Because athletic trainers often work far from the hospital campus, their effectiveness depends on connections. Emergency action plans must link to local emergency services and receiving facilities. Injury evaluations must reach physicians, imaging, and orthopedic or sports medicine clinics without delay. Rehabilitation plans must be shared across physical therapy, the athletic trainer, and the person’s school or employer.
Executives can make athletic training visible as part of the continuum rather than an outreach add-on. That means clear clinical supervision and referral pathways, shared documentation where possible, emergency readiness drills with partner sites, and measures that show whether injured people reach the right care promptly and return to activity safely. Reliability across these handoffs is what turns “Care You Can Count On” into an operating standard.
Confirm that every site served by the organization’s athletic trainers has a current, rehearsed emergency action plan linked to local emergency services and receiving facilities.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that athletic trainers held 35,200 jobs in 2025.
BLS projects athletic trainer employment to grow 13 percent from 2025 to 2035.
BLS lists a master’s degree as the typical entry-level education for athletic trainers.
Figures are summarized from the authoritative sources linked below. Definitions and denominators should be read with each source.
Connect prevention to emergency care to recovery.
Athletic training touches four linked responsibilities, each with a handoff to the wider health system.
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Prevent injury
Support evidence-based prevention programs at schools, workplaces, and community sites served by athletic trainers.
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Be emergency ready
Maintain rehearsed emergency action plans with equipment checks and clear links to emergency services.
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Coordinate clinical care
Route evaluated injuries to physicians, imaging, and specialty clinics through defined referral pathways.
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Rehabilitate and return
Share rehabilitation plans across athletic trainers, therapists, and physicians so return to activity is coordinated.
Reliability rule: Every site an athletic trainer serves should have a current emergency action plan that has been rehearsed with local partners.
Make athletic training performance visible.
These instruments are local management prompts for programs the organization runs or supports.
Emergency readiness
Track whether emergency action plans are current and rehearsed at each site.
Referral timeliness
Track how quickly injured people referred by athletic trainers are seen.
Communication loop
Track whether visit findings return to the referring athletic trainer.
Return to activity
Track whether return-to-activity decisions are documented and coordinated.
Strengthen the handoffs from the field.
Athletic trainers often start care far from the hospital; the handoffs decide what happens next.
From field or workplace to emergency services
- Activate the emergency action plan and call emergency services.
- Share the mechanism of injury and care already given.
- Send known history and contact details with the patient.
From athletic trainer to physician or specialty clinic
- Send the evaluation findings and reason for referral.
- Confirm the appointment and who will follow up.
- Return visit findings and restrictions to the athletic trainer.
From clinical care to rehabilitation and return to activity
- Share the rehabilitation plan and restrictions.
- Coordinate progress updates among therapists, athletic trainers, and physicians.
- Document the return-to-activity decision and communicate it to the school or employer as appropriate.
Privacy and consent requirements for sharing information with schools or employers should follow the organization’s own policies and counsel.
Four questions for leaders to track.
A short scorecard keeps athletic training integrated with the wider system.
| Signal | Executive question | Accountable owner | Review cadence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Readiness | Are emergency action plans current and rehearsed at every site we serve? | Sports medicine and emergency services leaders | Quarterly |
| Access | Do injured people referred by athletic trainers reach care promptly? | Orthopedics and access leaders | Monthly |
| Coordination | Do findings and plans flow back to athletic trainers? | Sports medicine medical director | Quarterly |
| Workforce | Are athletic trainer roles, supervision, and staffing sustainable? | Chief nursing or clinical operations officer | Quarterly |
Use March to start a 90-day readiness cycle.
National Athletic Training Month is a natural time to test emergency readiness and referral pathways.
Start with emergency action plans, because they carry the highest stakes. Review each site the organization serves and schedule rehearsals with local partners. Then examine referral and return-to-activity handoffs. Report results and next steps to leadership at the end of the cycle.
Days 1–30: Inventory
- List every site served by the organization’s athletic trainers.
- Collect current emergency action plans.
- Pull baseline referral-to-visit intervals.
Days 31–60: Rehearse
- Schedule emergency action plan rehearsals with local partners.
- Standardize referral information and scheduling ownership.
- Agree how findings return to athletic trainers.
Days 61–90: Report
- Report plan currency and rehearsal completion.
- Compare referral intervals to baseline.
- Recognize athletic trainers’ contributions internally.
Make the care dependable end to end.
National Athletic Training Month 2026 celebrates “Care You Can Count On”; health systems can honour that theme by making prevention, emergency readiness, coordination, and rehabilitation dependable at every site.
Turn National Athletic Training Month into accountable action.
Make dependable injury prevention, emergency readiness, clinical coordination, and rehabilitation visible across every setting athletic trainers serve.
Leadership focus
Make injury prevention, emergency readiness, clinical coordination, and rehabilitation dependable across every setting athletic trainers serve.
Workforce lens
Recognize athletic trainers’ roles and brief emergency, orthopedic, and rehabilitation teams on referral and communication pathways.
Patient and community lens
Make sure injured people and families know who coordinates their care and what the return-to-activity plan is.
Equity and access lens
Review whether schools and community sites in under-resourced areas have equal access to athletic training services and emergency readiness.
Inspect the operating sequence
NATA’s 2026 National Athletic Training Month theme is “Care You Can Count On.” Athletic trainers often work far from our campuses, so their reliability depends on our pathways. This month we will verify emergency readiness and referral handoffs at the sites we serve.
- 01Prevent injury
- 02Be emergency ready
- 03Coordinate clinical care
- 04Rehabilitate and return
Leadership actions for this week
- Name an executive sponsor and frontline operating owner.
- Ask people using and operating the pathway where ownership becomes unclear.
- Test one representative route from first question to acknowledged next step.
- Select one barrier that can be corrected without overstating the evidence.
- Set a review date and define how completion will be verified.
Candidate measures
Define every numerator, denominator where relevant, owner, data source, exclusions, cadence, and limitation locally. These are management prompts, not external benchmarks.
- Share of served sites with an emergency action plan reviewed and rehearsed in the past year
- Median days from athletic trainer referral to completed physician or specialty visit
- Share of referrals with findings returned to the athletic trainer
Department readiness checklist
- The public and staff entry points match the actual approved process.
- A specific role accepts each request, referral, or escalation.
- Handoffs include acknowledgment and a visible unresolved state.
- Language, disability, digital, transportation, and trust barriers receive explicit review.
- Communications do not introduce unsupported themes, statistics, or clinical advice.
- A named leader will review what changed after the observance.
Intended audiences
- Executive and Operational Leaders
- Public Health and Community Partners
Staff communication template
During National Athletic Training Month, our organization will review emergency action plans and referral pathways for every site our athletic trainers serve. Please share any gaps you see in readiness or communication.
Community communication template
March is National Athletic Training Month. We thank the athletic trainers who deliver care you can count on in our schools, workplaces, and communities.
Measurement worksheet
- Signal
- What observable condition will show whether the route works?
- Definition
- What is included, excluded, and counted?
- Owner
- Who reviews the signal and acts on exceptions?
- Cadence
- When will leaders review it?
- Equity check
- Which differences require protected, locally appropriate review?
- Closure
- What evidence will confirm the improvement was completed?
Authoritative resources
- National Athletic Training Month, National Athletic Trainers’ Association
- Athletic Trainers: Occupational Outlook Handbook, US Bureau of Labor Statistics
Verification note: NATA confirms that National Athletic Training Month is observed every March and that the 2026 theme, selected by member vote, is “Care You Can Count On.”