Newswise — ROSEMONT, Ill. (November 4, 2022)—The American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR), the cornerstone of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) Registry Program, published its 2022 Annual Report on hip and knee arthroplasty procedural trends and patient outcomes today. The ninth annual report demonstrates an overall cumulative procedural volume growth of 14% compared to the previous year and includes over 2.8 million hip and knee procedures since 2012 from over 1,250 hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), and private practice groups submitting data.

To view the full AJRR Annual Report, click here.

“Data is powerful,” said Bryan D. Springer, MD, FAAOS, chair of the AJRR Steering Committee. “The AJRR Annual Report puts 10 years of procedural data at our fingertips and allows orthopaedic surgeons to develop robust, meaningful analytics that can unlock new insights into patient reported outcomes and support highly informed decision-making and quality improvement.”

Why This Matters
With the collection and reporting of U.S. hip and knee arthroplasty data, the report aims to provide valuable information to orthopaedic surgeons, hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), private practices, device manufacturers, payers and most importantly patients. Its findings can help change practice and improve patient outcomes.

The AJRR is the largest orthopaedic Registry by annual procedure count. Some notable highlights in the 2022 Annual Report include:

  •  Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) are increasingly being utilized to evaluate success of a hip or knee arthroplasty procedure. Through continued support of the RegistryInsights® PROM platform and partnerships with third-party vendors, AJRR has experienced substantial growth in PROMs capture. By the end of 2021, over 400 participating sites submitted PROMs, which is a 38% increase compared to the previous year.
  • For the first time this year, age-stratified patient reported outcome scores were evaluated. Patients older than 75 years of age were found to have poorer scores compared to younger groups, most notably on the PROMIS-10 quality of life assessment tool.
  • ASCs play an increasingly important role in the delivery of total joint arthroplasty care in the U.S. The number of procedures submitted by ASCs has grown exponentially between 2012 and 2020 and has increased by 57% since the 2021 AJRR Annual Report.
  • Trends in the utilization of technology in total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and total hip arthroplasty (THA) were a new addition to this report. Utilization of robotics in TKA has increased over six-fold and more than doubled in THA since 2017. Computer navigation use has remained relatively stable.
  • Peer-reviewed publications and presentations based on AJRR Registry data continue to be an important focus of AJRR.

"The past decade has been marked by a multitude of successes and growth for AJRR," says James A. Browne, MD, FAAOS, chair of the AJRR Publications Subcommittee and editor of AJRR Publications. “This year’s AJRR Annual Report is testament to the commitment of healthcare institutions, clinicians and patients to improving quality musculoskeletal care. As I look ahead, I am optimistic about the future and our ability to provide clinical insights, national trends and risk-stratified outcome analyses for patients who undergo hip and knee arthroplasty procedures.”

For slides with figures and data tables as featured in the report, email [email protected].

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AAOS Registry Program
The AAOS Registry Program’s mission is to improve orthopaedic care through the collection, analysis, and reporting of actionable data. The American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR), the Academy’s hip and knee replacement registry, is the cornerstone of the AAOS’s Registry Program, and the world’s largest national registry of hip and knee joint replacement data by annual procedural count, with more than 2.8 million procedures contained within its database. Additional registries include the Fracture & Trauma Registry, the Musculoskeletal Tumor Registry (MsTR), the Shoulder & Elbow Registry (SER), and the American Spine Registry (ASR), a collaborative effort between the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) and the AAOS. 

About the AAOS
With more than 38,000 members, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons is the world’s largest medical association of musculoskeletal specialists. The AAOS is the trusted leader in advancing musculoskeletal health. It provides the highest quality, most comprehensive education to help orthopaedic surgeons and allied health professionals at every career level best treat patients in their daily practices. The AAOS is the source for information on bone and joint conditions, treatments and related musculoskeletal health care issues, and it leads the health care discussion on advancing quality.

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