American Spine Registry Expands Sponsors with Addition of Medtronic

ROSEMONT, Ill. (May 5, 2021)—The American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) announced that Medtronic, a global leader in medical technology, has become the latest industry sponsor of the American Spine Registry. Medtronic’s sponsorship of the ASR builds upon its commitment to advancing the science of spine care and improving spine surgery outcomes with a shared goal of improving patient care.

“The American Spine Registry is building momentum,” said Steven Glassman, MD, FAAOS, medical director at the Norton Leatherman Spine Centers and ASR Executive Committee co-chair. “By engaging the expertise and leadership of industry sponsors like Medtronic, we can enhance the scalability, sustainability, ease-of-use and relevance of national spine data collection.”

Degenerative spine disease is one of the most prevalent and costly disease states worldwide with common surgeries including spinal fusion and decompression or discectomy surgery. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, more than 1.2 million spinal surgeries are preformed nationally each year.

“This is a timely and paradigm-shifting partnership,” said Anthony Asher, MD, FAANS, FACS, president of the Atrium-Wake Forest Baptist Neuroscience Institute and ASR Executive Committee co-chair. “The AANS and AAOS are highly-regarded surgical specialty societies, which have overlapping clinical, scientific and economic interests in spine-related therapies. It is therefore highly significant that these two organizations ultimately chose to embrace the greater potential of what we could accomplish together. That potential is increasingly being recognized by essential stakeholders, including leading biotechnology partners such as Medtronic.”

A collaboration between the AANS and AAOS, the ASR helps surgeons understand what spine procedures work best in what patients by providing data relevant to making critical clinical and resource-related decisions. It is a far-reaching program that facilitates the participation of all U.S. spine surgeons in a shared, data-collection platform with the goal of improving improve spine care outcomes through data.

“We are excited to partner with ASR and believe that the data collected through this registry will provide meaningful insights on the performance of our technologies and clinical outcomes of various procedures that can be used to make critical advancements in spinal innovation,“ said Carlton Weatherby, vice president and general manager, Medtronic Spine and Biologics. “This partnership, coupled with our recent acquisition of Medicrea, reinforces our commitment to high quality data and focus on the application of artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, and data-enabled therapies driving improved patient outcomes in spine care.”

Support from industry partners such as Medtronic allows the ASR to further invest in the technology and science that is needed to evolve the registry and better meet the needs of all major stakeholders, including physicians, patients, payors, regulatory groups and industry partners.

MAKING AN IMPACT ON THE FUTURE OF SPINE CARE
Since its launch in 2020, more than 200 practice locations have enrolled in the ASR throughout 35 states. The ASR now offers nearly a dozen data reuse opportunities to participating sites and surgeons. Together with its sponsors, the ASR aims to:

• Utilize data to establish benchmarks for clinical performance and the validity of various quality measures, which are efforts critical to a value-based health care system;
• 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; and
• Help inform gaps in knowledge and define areas for further education and research.

To learn more about sponsorship opportunities or to enroll in the ASR, email info@americanspineregistry.org or call 847-292-0530.

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About the American Spine Registry
The American Spine Registry is a collaborative effort of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons on a national quality improvement registry for spine care. Both organizations have joint ownership and leadership representation in this effort. The ASR provides spine surgeons across the country scalability, sustainability, ease-of-use and relevance of national spine data collection efforts and facilitates intelligent data use. For more information, please visit www.AmericanSpineRegistry.org.