Annunziato “Ned” Amendola, MD, the new president of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, is focused on making the organization stronger than ever.
Dr. Amendola spoke with Becker’s about his plans for this term in leadership and how he is approaching the toughest challenges in orthopedics.
Note: This conversation was lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What are your top priorities for this term?
Dr. Ned Amendola: As the president of the organization, I’m still just a member of a great team. We have a very strong board of directors, and as president, you’re chair of the board and you really utilize the whole board for direction.
My goal is to continue to strengthen our organization. We represent more than 39,000 orthopedic surgeons, and it’s in good shape. But with everything changing around us, like orthopedic technology, AI and the new federal government, we continually have to evolve as an organization. Another goal is to make sure that we communicate and partner with all our specialty societies. We also have a lot of international collaboration and would like to support that.
So I’m not going to drastically change our organization, but I really want to further strengthen our organization to make sure that we’re dealing with the changes in healthcare.
Q: What is your outlook on concerns such as reimbursements, Medicare and other policy changes? How are you approaching physician advocacy?
NA: Changes are happening so quickly, and things are volatile in every way. At my institution where I work, they’ve really been hit hard with the proposed changes in healthcare funding, the proposed changes in research, the concern about diversity, equity and inclusion and what academic institutions are doing. There’s a lot of things on the plate, and we’re trying to really look at all these changes and what we’re doing in terms of delivering care.
We don’t know exactly what the end point is going to be, but we have to prepare for those things. We’re still going to have a strong voice on Capitol Hill with our Office of Government Relations and the AAOS Advocacy Council, and we’re going to continue to communicate with all the representatives, all the state societies and collaborate with other organizations to advocate for physicians and patient care.
We formed a new strategic plan last year that we are putting into action this year, and the new pillar of the strategic plan is focused on the patient component. We feel that engaging patients more through advocacy, education and engagement and get the patients to speak up for orthopedic surgery will provide a stronger voice to our representatives and to our musculoskeletal community.
Q: What’s exciting you the most when it comes to AI?
NA: Utilization of AI is one of the ways that we can support our members. It’s really developing quickly, and when you look at the everyday routines that go on in the office, in terms of seeing patients, documenting their medical record, getting authorization for imaging, getting authorization for surgery, I think all those things can be automated to make it much more efficient for physicians and surgeons.
These are ways that AI can really make sure that all the boxes are checked off, all the prerequisites are filled and the likelihood of not having the surgery approved is much lower, and the prior authorization will be much better. AI can also automate what goes on in the office, such as taking care of patients, documentation, surgery, and then even after surgery, having apps that help follow up with the patients.
That’s going to be the main way to help patients and to help surgeons in their practice. The other way is in terms of things that are done in a repetitive fashion such as routine imaging and follow-up. Obviously AI is particularly effective for research and accumulating large amounts of data to see how we’re doing with our surgical procedures.
Q: Is there anything else new within the strategic plan that members can expect to see?
NA: The AAOS is still a member-driven organization. We’re not losing sight of that, so we need to continue to look at what value our members get from belonging to the AAOS. We continue to look at all aspects in supporting our members through advocacy, trying to provide whatever is required to improve patient care. We all take care of patients, so our relationships with industry and collaborating with industry in terms of improving the technology and improving the way we’re able to take care of patients, techniques and new surgical procedures.
The relationship with all the other societies is important. If you look at orthopedic surgery now, most surgeons are subspecialized. They belong to a subspecialty society and get a lot of their education from their subspecialty education. So we need to partner and communicate clearly with the subspecialty societies on how we can work together to provide everything that our surgeon members need to maintain their skill level and be at the top of their game.
That’s the emphasis of the strategic plan — making sure we’re not acting as an independent organization, but one of many other partner organizations to provide everything our members need to be able to take care of their patients.
