An article published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery addresses this issue, focusing on multicenter trials. Here are 10 key notes from the study:
1. Orthopedic surgery is expensive, but with the burden of musculoskeletal disease surgery could be the most cost-effective treatment for some common issues and injuries.
2. There is a lack of unbiased clinical outcomes study data available in the literature.
3. Orthopedic surgeons will be able to show cost-effectiveness through collecting patient-generated outcomes data in prospective randomized and observational studies.
4. Osteoarthritis treatment is the costliest condition in the elderly population, so payers are scrutinizing treatment.
5. There will likely be pressure to reduce payments and/or deny treatment for osteoarthritis patients without clinical outcomes data to show the value of orthopedic interventions, especially if these procedures are perceived as too expensive.
6. Funding from the National Institutes of Health dropped around 20 percent over the past decade in inflation-adjusted dollars, but is reorienting toward clinical research where around 50 percent of the budget was focused in 2013.
7. The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute is expected to fund around $750 million of comparative effectiveness research annually.
8. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation also funds major initiatives, including one grant program totalling $1 billion in 2012.
9. Increased participation in prospective multicenter trials enrolling a large number of patients and examining cost-effectiveness are encouraged.
10. Other aspects studies can examine include defining optimal surgery timing and identifying which patients most and least benefit from surgery.
More articles on orthopedic surgery:
Dr. William Long speaks on computers and robotics as the future of joint replacement surgery
Nashville Business Journal names Dr. Burton Elrod 2015 Health Care Hero
Dr. Brian Mehling delivers keynote address on stem cell therapies at orthopedic research symposium
