Engaging Patients in New Ways

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

In February, AAOS approved its next Strategic Plan for 2024–2028, with four overarching strategic goals: Members, Patients, Culture, and Musculoskeletal (MSK) Community. Our objective is to share the strategic direction and key activities supporting each goal and how that direction benefits our members.

The new Strategic Plan reflects AAOS’ continued evolution and growth toward the future and provides direction for our ongoing activities as the leader in musculoskeletal health and consistent advocates for our members and their patients. As AAOS continues to share its new 2024–2028 Strategic Plan, this article explores the Patients goal in greater depth.

In developing the new Strategic Plan, the AAOS Board of Directors felt it was important to be bold and aspirational in its thinking about the future. AAOS should always be seeking ways to advance our profession as a means of supporting our members and their patients while acting as thought leaders for the profession. The Patients goal represents one of the components in the new plan focused on that ideal. It represents an active move forward—building on the Quality goal in the last Strategic Plan and reinforcing the importance of quality initiatives, evolution of MSK care, and advocacy that propels patient care forward—and expands AAOS’ focus on the patient. With our members’ focus on patient care, quality initiatives, and advocacy, AAOS will be seen as the leaders in health transformation, striving to find the best value for all.

As orthopaedic surgeons, we take pride in providing comprehensive and outstanding patient care. Patients have always been at the center of what AAOS and its members do, and AAOS has indirectly served patients by serving its members, who subsequently take care of their patients. This new plan envisions more opportunities to connect and engage with patients directly. AAOS has traditionally done that through its patient education website, OrthoInfo, which enables patients worldwide to easily access hundreds of pieces of practical content and facilitates informed treatment discussions with their physicians.

AAOS also builds awareness of OrthoInfo, accessible at orthoinfo.org, and promotes our orthopaedic surgeons as experts in MSK care through media communications and advocacy events.

As with the other Strategic Plan goals, the Patients goal includes four Strategic Objectives to clarify the direction and reflect clear choices on where AAOS plans to focus energy and resources over the next 5 years.

Strategic Objective: Increase patient engagement, advocacy, and education 
AAOS member volunteers have expressed interest in recent years about how AAOS can ensure that patients are a central priority along with members. AAOS can explore how to add more patient considerations to existing AAOS activities and new ways to interact. By enhancing patient touchpoints and resources and increasing patient engagement, advocacy, and education, AAOS can have a greater impact on improving MSK health.

This Strategic Objective is purposefully broad for now, allowing AAOS to assess the right scope for a greater connection with patients. This process will evolve over the 5 years of this Strategic Plan, to explore how AAOS can best engage patients and consider opportunities across all AAOS activities. AAOS can develop the optimal approach that best supports members to deliver patient care and improve health.

Strategic Objective: Empower actionable practice improvement through use of AAOS quality initiatives, including registries
Beyond patient engagement, the Strategic Plan also continues to reflect the vital importance of supporting members and overall healthcare. AAOS enables practice improvement with accessible and actionable quality tools that also have a positive impact on the quality of its members’ practices and patient outcomes.

AAOS will continue to refresh its Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) and related Appropriate Use Criteria on key clinical issues in MSK care, expanding available resources and guidance to enable clinical decision making. AAOS also offers other tools aligned to this Strategic Objective and will continue finding ways to support members, such as offering toolkits on clinical topics.

Examples of current AAOS toolkits include topics such as opioids, patient safety, and patient-reported outcome measures. The AAOS family of registries also remains a clear focus and point of differentiation as a valuable resource to understand clinical impact and connect practice data across the country to improve the quality of care.

Strategic Objective: Lead health system delivery and payment model transformation to increase value for patients
Members are navigating the balance between historical fee-for-service models and the continuing evolution toward population health and value-based care. AAOS can work to lead those transitions and increase value for patients, while also advocating for members as part of AAOS’ mission as a member-driven organization.

Quality initiatives such as the AAOS Registries and CPGs are key to AAOS’ and orthopaedic surgeons’ credibility as leaders in healthcare. AAOS can strengthen its leadership role in the profession by supporting innovation in health system delivery. AAOS supports members, patients, and partners with advocacy and education around new payment models and member opportunities in value-based care. With these initiatives, AAOS will help shape the ongoing transformation in the field of orthopaedic surgery.

Strategic Objective: Advocate throughout the healthcare ecosystem to improve health and health equity
Advocacy remains a key strength and is required to support our profession and generate positive change for clinicians and patients. AAOS has strong credibility through the Political Action Committee of the American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons (OrthoPAC) and the active support of its members. OrthoPAC allows AAOS and its members to have an even stronger impact on patient health.

Advocacy issues are inexorably linked between clinician and patient, such as finding solutions for surprise billing or streamlining prior authorization and improving access to care for all. AAOS’ commitment to diversity is echoed within its advocacy and in the actual delivery of healthcare. AAOS supports diversity not solely in member careers, membership, or leadership pathways, but in advocating to not only improve health, but also to overcome health disparities and improve health equity in orthopaedics.

Advocacy is also addressed in the Members goal specific to AAOS member practices. The Patients goal reflects AAOS advocacy more broadly in its impact on healthcare, health equity, and patient health.

The new AAOS Strategic Plan reflects a clear commitment to members, patients, and healthcare leadership, as well as modernizing governance and partnering throughout the MSK community. The Patients goal reflects a bold and aspirational effort to engage patients more directly and reinforces the ongoing importance of quality initiatives, advocacy, and health transformation. The new Strategic Plan builds on strong foundations to add new direction as the map guiding AAOS, its members, patients, and partners on a mutual journey forward through 2028.

The Political Action Committee of the American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons (OrthoPAC) is affiliated with and connected to the 501(c)(6) Association. OrthoPAC is not connected to or affiliated with the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, which is a 501(c)(3) organization.

Annunziato Amendola, MD, FAAOS, is the AAOS first vice president. He serves as the Virginia Flowers Baker Distinguished Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery; chief of the Sports Medicine Division; executive director of the James R. Urbaniak, MD, Sports Sciences Institute; and head team physician and chief medical officer for Duke Athletics, all at Duke University.

For AAOS, patient engagement starts with OrthoInfo

In the new Strategic Plan, AAOS is exploring ways to expand direct connections with patients. With more than 2.1 million visitors each month, OrthoInfo is AAOS’ most direct and visible current connection to patients and provides AAOS a strong base upon which to grow. “OrthoInfo is a rich resource offering depth and breadth of musculoskeletal information for patients. Even beyond its value as an educational resource, it helps foster discussion between patients and clinicians to enable and support partnership on treatment plans,” said Quin Throckmorton, MD, FAAOS, editor-in-chief of OrthoInfo.

OrthoInfo has a variety of resources and topics available, all written in plain language and with some content also translated into Spanish, which can help reduce health disparities and increase patients’ access to information. The content is easily findable through online search whenever and wherever patients need it, reinforcing AAOS and orthopaedic surgeons as leaders in musculoskeletal health. OrthoInfo offers an accessible, trustworthy tool for patients to learn about their conditions, treatments, recovery, and more. Members can easily share OrthoInfo content with patients—by printing it out, linking to it in a patient’s after-visit summary, adding links to a practice website, or downloading the new specialty-specific QR codes.

Visit OrthoInfo at orthoinfo.org to reconnect to a great resource for your patients—or discover one if you have not yet used it.