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New initiative from orthopedic group guides physicians, hospitals in bone health education and treatment
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The American Orthopaedic Association has developed a multidisciplinary, Web-based, quality improvement initiative to guide hospitals and practitioners in addressing bone health and fragility fractures.
The Own the Bone initiative offers a registry, testing, counseling, treatment, education and communication components. According to its organizers, the program is steadily gaining momentum. However, patients at risk of fragility fractures can only benefit from the initiative once a local site such as, a physician, hospital or health care system, enrolls in the Own the Bone program.
“We want to close this treatment gap that one in five Americans get appropriate evaluation and treatment for their bone health,” Douglas R. Dirschl, MD, chairman of the University of North Carolina’s department of orthopedics, said during an Own the Bone Webinar. “That is simply not acceptable. We want to begin to close that gap with a national program,” he said.
Offers guidelines
During an on-line roundtable discussion, Dirschl described measures included in the initiative such as, vitamin D and calcium intake measures, weight-bearing exercises, fall prevention, lifestyle changes and FDA-approved pharmacotherapies.
The evidence-based initiative suggests possible approaches to practitioners for managing patients with low bone mass, but does not recommend specific ones, Dirschl noted.
Once sites are enrolled, Own the Bone helps them organize their resources. Through a communication feature, individual sites can run reports to track data and results for patients in the Web-based registry. They can also generate letters for the primary care physician (PCP) and patient regarding an individual’s bone health and the need for possible bone mineral density testing or follow-up.
Combined effort
“What Own the Bone really endeavors to achieve is to bring together around each of these patients a community of providers [that] interact together to impact that patient’s health, well-being and knowledge of their bone disease,” Dirschl said.
Jay S. Magaziner, PhD, a professor of epidemiology and preventive medicine at the University of Maryland, who also participated in the discussion said that it is time that the United States became proactive in addressing the effects that poor bone health has on people older than age 50.
“What we are seeing is an increase in the number of hip fractures over the next 40 years in both men and women” he said. He added that this situation will require various interventions.
Beatrice J. Edwards, MD, the director of the Bone Health and Osteoporosis Center at Northwestern University, who also participated in the discussion said to expect positive outcomes from the initiative. She noted that the Own the Bone pilot program demonstrated improvement in bone health-related measures as early as 6 months after evaluation or therapy.
“Even if you only send a PCP a letter, you can see a result,” she added.
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