Dr. Antonia Chen for Registry Analytics Institute (RAI)

Speaker: Antonia Chen, MD, FAAOS, AJRR Steering Committee

Antonia Chen, MD, FAAOS: The AAOS Registry Analytics Institute is a wonderful way to conduct research using the American Joint Replacement Registry data, which is the world's largest arthroplasty Registry. It gives an opportunity for clinicians and research to analyze this data, and they do so by submitting proposals which are peer reviewed. Once they're peer reviewed and approved, you work with AAOS to generate the reports and the analysis from the AJRR, which you can write your research up from. The RAI supports orthopaedic research by enabling rigorous scientific analysis of Registry data, fostering evidence-based improvements in patient outcomes, and informs the best clinical practices that we can perform for joint replacement patients.

Antonia Chen, MD, FAAOS: AJRR data encompasses millions of hip and knee arthroplastic procedures, and this allows for large scale real word analysis that inform best practices and quality initiatives. Access to this comprehensive database allows researchers to identify trends such as evaluating how an implant is doing, see the effectiveness of interventions, and address critical clinical questions in joint replacement surgery. Findings from these RAI supported projects contribute to publications, presentations, and posters that shape guidelines and improve patient care across the orthopaedic community.

Antonia Chen, MD, FAAOS: If this is your first time submitting a proposal to the Registries Analytics Institute to conduct an AJRR study, congratulations. If it's not your first time, we're glad that you're back. The best way to try to get your proposal approved is to first review available AJRR data elements and capture rates to ensure your research question can be addressed with the existing data. AJRR collects a certain number of data elements and you want to ensure that your proposal encompasses these data parameters so that your study can be conducted. Secondly, check ongoing and recently completed RAI projects to avoid duplicating previous work and to ensure that your proposal is unique, so it has an increased likelihood of being selected. And finally, clearly define your clinical question, patient population, interventions, potential statistical tests, and desired outcomes to enhance the scope, clarity, and feasibility of your proposal, as these are being peer reviewed and then selected based on the ability to conduct the project as well as the novelty of the project.

Antonia Chen, MD, FAAOS: The RAI is fantastic because it gives you an incredible breadth of data available through the American Joint Replacement Registry. I'm really excited to continue to use this Registry to identify trends in implants, identify implants that are doing well, implants that aren't doing as well, to ensure that we give the best possible outcomes to our patients. I'm also excited to see how we can evaluate different new technologies through the large databases available through AJRR. I also like to see implant design and fixation on survivorship and patient reported outcomes is really what we're looking to the future. What can we do to improve the predictability of our total hip and total knee arthroplastic procedures to see if we can make a difference in our patient outcomes. And as we scale this to a much larger level with more patient reported outcomes, how can we make an impact on our patients? So the future is bright with AJRR RAI.

Antonia Chen, MD, FAAOS: Submitting a proposal to AJRR RAI is an easy process. The goal is to support your research that you want to conduct on a larger scale. So for example, if you had a study you've done at a single institution. Or using it at one other institution or someone else's retrospective study, and you want to see this in a much larger scale through AJRR. First, ensure the data elements that you're interested are available. Patient reported outcomes, for example, are available. But if you're looking at specific hemoglobin hematocrit levels, for example, in that great detail, you probably won't find that in the AJRR. So, have a hypothesis, have a research question, write an introduction like you normally would, write your methods, how you're statistically going to perform the analysis, what data that you would need for it, and then what's your goal with your project? Paper, podium, posters, etc. And once you do so, understand that you won't get the physical data from AJRR. That's proprietary data. But what you will get is a nicely packaged analysis of all the results that you're looking for, and you work with the AJRR RAI team in tandem to ensure that you get the right analysis that you can put the best paper out there to help inform what we do in our clinical practices.