This week, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons announced an historic partnership to build a national spine registry.
As a recognized leader in spine care, Norton Leatherman Spine will be one of the initial pilot sites for the American Spine Registry (ASR), contributing data to the growing body of knowledge of spine surgery.
“This registry has the potential to drive important improvements in quality of care and patient outcomes. It will provide data relevant to critical clinical and resource-related decisions in spine care,” said Steven D. Glassman, M.D., an orthopedic spine surgeon who is medical director of Norton Leatherman Spine and co-chair of the ASR.
Goals for the ASR include:
- Inform care guidelines for neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons and establish benchmarks to test clinical performance.
- Provide feedback to providers that allows them to continuously improve their practice and health care outcomes using methods applicable to all practice settings.
- Reduce data reporting burdens on physicians and allow reuse of data for regulatory requirements and continuous quality improvement programs.
- Help inform gaps in knowledge and define areas for further education and research.
The ASR will build on the robust infrastructure of the AAOS registry platform, and the 10-year experience of the AANS Quality Outcomes Database (QOD) spine registry, currently the nation’s largest spine registry.