Partnering across the Musculoskeletal Community

Editor’s note: This article is the final article in a four-part series dedicated to understanding and implementing the new AAOS Strategic Plan. Part one focused on the Members goal, part two focused on the Patient goal, and part three focused on the Culture goal.

In February 2024, the AAOS Board of Directors approved a new 2024–2028 Strategic Plan, which will guide our continued evolution and positive trajectory started during the prior plan. The new Strategic Plan prioritizes four strategic goals: Members, Patients, Culture, and Musculoskeletal (MSK) Community.

AAOS shares its direction around the MSK Community goal in this fourth installment of the article series, reflecting both its commitment to maintain and strengthen traditional partnerships and its intent to broaden relationships and thought leadership regarding MSK health.

The MSK Community goal is the fourth goal in the 2024–2028 Strategic Plan. It represents a completely new focus in AAOS’ strategic direction, expanding from three main goals in the prior plan. Patients and health equity are not the only new areas of focus; the Strategic Plan also includes an ambitious goal to expand partnerships across the broader MSK community.

To achieve its vision as “the trusted leaders in advancing musculoskeletal health,” AAOS must navigate an evolving, diverse healthcare ecosystem both within orthopaedics and tangentially with others impacting MSK care and health. AAOS can engage others throughout this expansive community to better serve patients, create value for all, and ultimately advance knowledge and improve health—not just MSK health, but health. It is vitally important to engage the full MSK community with diverse partners to achieve these lofty goals.

The MSK Community goal is comprised of three Strategic Objectives to better define and guide AAOS’ direction and investment of resources through 2028.

Strategic Objective: Partner with orthopaedic specialty societies on mutually beneficial goals
Partnerships with other orthopaedic societies remain a key area of commitment for AAOS and an important component in engaging the broader MSK community. AAOS has positive existing relationships with many orthopaedic specialty societies. This includes subspecialty societies and those enabling diversity in the profession (e.g., J. Robert Gladden Orthopaedic Society, Ruth Jackson Orthopaedic Society), along with state, regional, and international specialty societies.

The AAOS Board of Directors felt it was important to specifically recognize specialty society relationships in this new Strategic Plan with the stated goal to continue partnering closely together. Partner activities should align to the AAOS Partnership Guiding Principles (Fig. 1), which were previously established collaboratively with subspecialty societies. This is based on a need for mutual value so that all societies and AAOS members benefit from joint activities.

AAOS collaborates with our specialty society partners in numerous meaningful ways to support our members, their patients, and the profession. Areas such as advocacy, quality, and co-creating educational content may lend themselves best to partnerships that can offer mutually beneficial goals and value. At the same time, there will be instances where AAOS and specialty societies may compete, such as in the education space, and that is perfectly acceptable.

Strategic Objective: Collaborate and innovate with other clinicians and organizations involved with MSK health
This Strategic Objective is the bold and aspirational core idea from which the MSK Community goal originally developed—broadening AAOS engagement with the MSK community to share knowledge and improve health. Beyond orthopaedic surgeons, many other stakeholders are engaged in the MSK health space. New entrants also have joined the MSK healthcare ecosystem, including fast-growing digital health apps (Fig. 2) focused on activating patients to improve their own MSK health.

How can MSK health be enhanced through collaboration between orthopaedic surgeons and other key stakeholders who influence MSK health? AAOS envisions working with other non-orthopaedic clinicians, from primary care physicians to specialists to physical therapists (both in person and digitally) to athletic trainers, as well as organizations such as payers, employers, industry, government, and patient-facing associations. Orthopaedic surgeons should ideally have a greater role leading those MSK interactions, coordinating care, and supporting other clinicians and organizations to deliver the highest-value musculoskeletal care.

Such collaboration across the MSK community can drive innovation and enhance connections between AAOS and other clinicians. It may drive new activities and connections that AAOS will explore and form within the next 5 years of this Strategic Plan. This goal does not aim to expand membership to include new clinician categories, although AAOS currently includes a diverse range of members, such as physician assistants, allied health professionals, and, more recently, medical students. Rather, this Strategic Objective focuses on enhancing collaboration across the MSK community to improve MSK health.

Strategic Objective: Serve as the trusted voice to improve musculoskeletal health
Lastly, to advance knowledge and improve health while pursuing AAOS’ vision as “the” trusted leaders, AAOS should also be the trusted voice in the profession. Whether serving as a convener or providing education or clinical guidance, AAOS seeks to be the most valued and credible voice in MSK health and utilize that platform to improve health overall. All of those actions will help AAOS and its members achieve their goals and have a strong impact in the healthcare community.

AAOS provides thought leadership and education and cultivates and disseminates knowledge. Clinical Practice Guidelines, the AAOS family of registries, and the Annual Meeting, among others, bring credibility to AAOS as a thought leader and enable other vital activities to support the profession, such as advocacy.

Similarly, taking leadership roles in emerging areas such as biologics and augmented reality/virtual reality while supporting members and patients regarding practice management or patient-report outcome measures all reinforce AAOS’ position as a trusted voice. AAOS will continue to offer education and resources for general orthopaedic surgeons and subspecialists across topics as a central source of knowledge and practical tools. Convening stakeholders and delivering guidance and education will enhance the future of orthopaedics and improve health. AAOS will continue working to ensure it is at the table for key healthcare discussions throughout the MSK community and more broadly across healthcare to represent orthopaedics, share knowledge, and advocate for members and their patients.

The 2024–2028 AAOS Strategic Plan no longer needs the moniker of “new.” It has been guiding AAOS since early 2024, codifying the direction chosen by the Board of Directors to drive AAOS forward and acting as a lens for decision making. AAOS is evolving to include broader engagement with patients and the MSK community while refining its culture and maintaining its longstanding core commitment to members. The MSK Community goal reinforces existing partnerships and leads the way to foster new ones. As AAOS strives to achieve its vision as the trusted leaders advancing musculoskeletal health, engagement with the broader MSK community is a key lever to raise us all up together.

Kevin J. Bozic, MD, MBA, FAAOS, is the inaugural chair of the Department of Surgery and Perioperative Care at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also the AAOS immediate past president.

Armando Felipe Vidal, MD, FAAOS, is chair of the Board of Specialty Societies, current member of the AAOS Board of Directors, and an orthopaedic sports medicine surgeon at the Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colorado.

Advancing knowledge and improving health: AAOS as a leader in orthobiologics

As a leader in orthobiologics, AAOS delivers accurate, evidence-based information to guide orthopaedic surgeons, improve patient care, and advance the quality of musculoskeletal (MSK) health.

AAOS is committed to educating members and patients, partnering on new research and thought leadership, and convening stakeholders throughout the MSK community. Striving to separate fact from fiction, AAOS is enhancing biologics knowledge and its application to orthopaedic care.

The AAOS Committee on Devices, Biologics, and Technology (DBT) is a key resource influencing all aspects of orthopaedic devices, biologics, and technologies with respect to regulatory, industrial, and payor affairs. Among the DBT’s key activities are:

• AAOS biologics symposia: convene key stakeholders and thought leaders across the MSK community to keep members at the forefront of science affecting orthopaedic practice
• AAOS Biologics Dashboard: provides a web tool allowing members to directly search for product names, offering data on biologics, including insights into regulatory status, approval, and indication
• Partnership with Orthopaedic Research and Evidence Foundation (OREF): funds targeted clinical research to fill gaps in knowledge, with current focus on clinical efficacy and safety of injectable orthobiologic treatments
• Arnold I. Caplan Award for Distinguished Research in Orthobiologics: honors pioneers in orthobiologics annually, funded by the Caplan family and overseen by OREF
• Technology overviews: leverage clinician expertise and peer-reviewed literature to inform members about current evidence on emergent biologics and technologies
• Advocacy: collaborates with federal agencies and advocates for members and patients, including a recent campaign for greater transparency in biologic product data
• Position statements and Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs): publish statements on important issues (e.g., “Innovation and Novel Technologies in Orthopaedic Surgery”) and include biologic therapies in CPG recommendations to provide trustworthy systematic literature review–driven guidance to members
• Patient resources: provide easy-to-find biologics resources for patients at OrthoInfo.org (e.g., “Orthobiologics [Regenerative Medicine] FAQ”)

AAOS is engaging the MSK community on biologics in its position as a thought leader in MSK health. AAOS will continue to educate and advocate for its members and their patients regarding orthobiologics to advance knowledge and improve health.

Explore a variety of orthobiologics resources at aaos.org/quality/biologics.