Why do successful surgeons have failed patient reported outcomes?

How come outcome after hip fracture has been more or less the same since the 1970s, regardless improvement in surgical technique?
Why is orthopedic research focused on comparisons of implant, and with outcomes such as reoperation, mortality and time to healing?
Do we know which outcome(s) that are really important for our patients?
Can further improvements be done by refining the surgical technique, or do we as orthopedic surgeons need to engage ourselves in other aspects of the care pathway?

Insights:

Illusory superiority – we think we are better than we are
Marketing – the industry promises better outcome when buying their specific product
Ignorance is bliss – lack of follow-up and/or lack of knowledge make us think that everything if fine
Blaming others, including the patient – surgeons feel that they are not responsible for what’s happening after the patient has left the OR. The diminishing capacity of an elderly person can be taken as an excuse not to provide her with rehabilitation.

Cecilia Rogmark MD
Associate Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery
Lund University

Bjarke Viberg, MD, PhD
Orthopaedic Surgeon
Associate Professor
University of Southern Denmark

Lund, Sweden

2020-06-22 @ 07:00 PM
* All event times are in EST (Toronto)