Spine

As rising healthcare costs continue to be a burden for patients and providers, new payment models such as bundled payments are gaining traction at healthcare facilities across the country. 

Dolores Hambardzumyan, PhD, was recently appointed to the department of neurosurgery and The Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

Fred Naraghi, MD, of Comprehensive Spine Center in San Francisco is moving his practice to Klamath Falls, Ore., in February.

Artificial intelligence could help improve the efficiencies and outcomes of spine surgery while reversing the field's ''unsustainable" trajectory of rising costs in the U.S., according to a paper published Jan. 6 in the Global Spine Journal.

Here are six spine and neurosurgeons making headlines this week.

Antoine Tohmeh, MD, an orthopedic surgeon with Tacoma, Wash.-based MultiCare, is pioneering three-level lateral fusions using the prone transpsoas surgery method, according to the Spokane Journal of Business.

Neurosurgeon Mahesh Karandikar, MD, PhD, recently joined McLaren Flint (Mich.), a 278-bed hospital as part of Grand Blanc, Mich.-based McLaren Health Care, reports Swartz Creek View.

Black patients had significantly worse outcomes than white patients after lumbar spinal fusion, according to a study published in Spine.

Keith Bridwell, MD, and Munish Gupta, MD, of St. Louis-based Washington University School of Medicine, recently published a fourth edition textbook on spine surgery.

Eleven spine specialists discuss advances in pain management and how it can improve outcomes in spine surgery.