Haley Van Escobar

Haley Van Escobar, MOTR/L, CHT, PMP, is an occupational therapist, Certified Hand Therapist, educator, and project manager with more than 14 years of experience in upper extremity rehabilitation.

Her interest in hand and upper extremity care is both professional and personal. Haley is a classically trained pianist who understands how closely our hands are connected to work, identity, independence, and the things we love to do. Her own recovery from traumatic venous thoracic outlet syndrome also changed how she thinks about the experience of being a patient, especially when life becomes complicated and the clinical plan is only one part of the story.

Throughout her career, Haley has been drawn to complex problems, innovation, and the space between good clinical decisions and what actually happens next. As the first Certified Hand Therapist at Naked Prosthetics, now part of Össur, she worked across disciplines to support people with partial-hand limb difference and the clinicians who care for them. Her work has included more than 1,200 prosthetic candidacy assessments, clinician education, program development, and projects designed to translate specialized knowledge into practical care.

Haley has contributed to Hand & Upper Extremity Rehabilitation, 4th edition and ASHT Times. Her educational work has included teaching ergonomics for Eastern Washington University's Master of Occupational Therapy program, serving with the American Society of Hand Therapists Education Division and the American Association for Hand Surgery Education Committee, educating Ukrainian clinicians on upper limb prosthetics, co-instructing ASHT's Hybrid Hand Therapy Review Course, and mentoring developing hand therapists through HTCC.

Her work increasingly focuses on a question clinicians encounter every day: What happens when good clinical reasoning doesn't lead to meaningful patient action? Her teaching explores patient interactions, resistance, adherence, learning, behavior change, and the pressures affecting both clinicians and patients.

Through Hand Therapy Learning Lab, Haley creates evidence-informed education designed to help healthcare professionals evaluate the interaction, understand what may be getting in the way, and turn clinical expertise into meaningful patient action.