Welcome the the American Joint Replacement Registry

AJRR Milestones

News

The pilot study concluded in June 2011. Registry production software was selected in August of 2011, and the AJRR is actively expanding recruitment of hospital sites.

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AJRR Board of Directors


Board of Directors Standing: Kevin J. Bozic, MD, MBA, Thomas C. Barber, MD, William J. Maloney, MD, E. Anthony Rankin, MD, Steven H. Stern, MD, J. Wesley Mesko, MD. Seated: Robert E. Durgin, JD, Catherine MacLean, MD, PhD, David G. Lewallen, MD, Terence J. Gioe, MD, Patience H. White, MD, MA, Not Pictured: Eric Rugo

It is the goal of the American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR) to foster a national center for data collection and research on total hip and knee replacement with far-reaching benefits to society including reduced morbidity and mortality, improved patient safety, improved quality of care and medical decision-making, reduced medical spending, and advances in orthopaedic science and bioengineering.

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Board of Directors Bios

David G. Lewallen, MD
Chair
Dr. David Lewallen is a Professor of Orthopedic Surgery and Consultant in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. He is the current chair of the Division of Adult Reconstructive Surgery in the department, and has had a career-long involvement with the Mayo Clinic Total Joint Registry, which has data on nearly all of the 100,000 joint arthroplasties performed there since the first, FDA approved total hip was performed at Mayo in 1969. Dr. Lewallen is a graduate of Gustavus Adolphus College, received his MD degree from the University of Minnesota, and completed a residency in Orthopedic Surgery at Mayo Clinic. He has been active in numerous professional societies and their boards, and is the past president of the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons. He is the current second vice president of the Hip Society and was nominated by that society for membership on the AJRR board. He has been closely involved over the past decade in the AAOS efforts to create a National Joint Replacement Registry serving as the Chair of the AJRR Oversight Committee, and chair of the more recent AJRR Board Project Team. Dr. Lewallen’s clinical practice and research activities have focused on both hip and knee arthroplasty, revision surgery, and the management of arthroplasty complications.

William J. Maloney, MD
Vice Chair
Dr. Maloney’s practice and research program at Stanford University focuses on adult reconstructive surgery, specifically hip and knee replacement. He has currently published more than 100 peer-reviewed publications on related topics. He has had a long standing interest in developing the American Joint Replacement Registry and convened the first meeting on this topic, which was co-sponsored by the AAOS and AHRQ. Since that time, Dr. Maloney has been continuously involved in the project in various leadership positions.

Steven H. Stern, MD
Secretary/Treasurer
Dr. Stern is a board-certified orthopaedic surgeon who specialized in adult reconstruction. He completed his orthopedic residency and knee fellowship at The Hospital for Special Surgery (Cornell University). In his current position at UnitedHealthcare, Dr. Stern is responsible for issues relating to musculoskeletal care including joint arthroplasty surgery. He is a member of multiple orthopedic societies related to joint replacement surgery, including the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), The Knee Society, the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons (AAHKS), and the American Orthopaedic Association (AOA). Dr. Stern has over twenty years of orthopedic surgical experience and published multiple articles on total knee and hip arthroplasty and total joint replacement.

Thomas C. Barber, MD
AAOS Representative
Dr. Barber served on the AAOS Board Oversight Committee for the American Total Joint Registry. Prior to that, he served on the hospital data committee for the registry effort for a number of years. He is a founding committee member of the Kaiser Total Joint Registry that now has 100,000 total joints registered in their database, and has been able to generate important research and practice guidelines. He continues to serve as co-chair of the Kaiser Interregional Implant Registry Oversight Committee, which has expanded into spine, ACL surgery, and cardiac devices. He has also served as the chair of the AAOS Board of Counselors, and as an AAOS Board member for 3 years. He is a practicing total joint surgeon.

Kevin J. Bozic, MD, MBA
AAHKS Representative
Dr. Bozic has been involved in total joint arthroplasty outcomes research since 2002, and currently serves as co-director of the UCSF Orthopaedic Surgery Health Outcomes Research Center, which oversees data collection and analysis for an Arthroplasty database that includes over 5,000 patients. He has worked closely with Dr. Callaghan and the other stakeholders on the AJRR project team for the past 2 years, and is currently the Medical Director for the California Joint Replacement Registry Project, which is a collaboration between orthopaedic surgeons, hospitals, the Pacific Business Group on Health, and the California Health Care Foundation, all of whom are interested in developing efficient strategies for measuring and reporting TJA patient outcomes. He is also the Chair of the AAOS Health Care Systems Committee (HCSC), which has an active interest in quality measurement and reporting. As Chair of the HCSC and a member of the Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee (MedCAC), he has had the opportunity to work with numerous external stakeholders (e.g., CMS, Congress, private payers, AHA, FDA, AHRQ, device companies) which has allowed him to develop a better understanding of their goals in pursuing a national joint replacement registry.

Robert E. Durgin, JD
Industry Representative
Mr. Durgin is Senior Vice President, Quality, Regulatory and Clinical Affairs for Biomet, Inc., with global responsibility for quality, regulatory compliance, regulatory submissions and clinical research on an enterprise-wide basis. He serves as the Chair of Advamed’s Orthopedics Products Working Group, the President of the Board of Directors of the Indiana Medical Device Manufacturers Council, and on the Board of Directors of the Orthopaedic Surgical Manufacturers Association. Bob also serves as the industry representative to the Orthopaedic and Rehabilitation Devices Panel of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s Medical Devices Advisory Committee. Bob is a native of Glendale, New York, and graduated from the University of Notre Dame (B.A. 1981), and the Tulane University School of Law (J.D. cum laude 1984). After serving as a Judge Advocate in the United States Marine Corps, Mr. Durgin practiced law with the New Orleans law firm of Montgomery, Barnett, Brown, Read, Hammond & Mintz, LLP, with a concentration in civil litigation. Bob joined Biomet in 1997, serving as Biomet’s Associate General Counsel with responsibility for managing domestic commercial, product liability and intellectual property litigation. Before assuming his current responsibilities in January 2009, Bob served as Biomet’s Vice President, Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance commencing in 2003, and as Biomet’s Corporate Vice President, Global Quality, Clinical Research and Regulatory Affairs. Bob deployed in support of Operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom and retired from the United States Marine Corps Reserve as a Lieutenant Colonel; his military decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal, Navy Commendation Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, and Combat Action Ribbon.

Terence J. Gioe, MD
Knee Society Representative
Dr. Gioe is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School and Chief of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Minneapolis VAMC. One of Dr. Gioe’s primary areas of interest is registry-based research and he has published a number of papers and lectured widely on data originating from the HealthEast Total Joint Registry (HEJR) in St. Paul, MN. This registry was begun in 1991 and Dr. Gioe was a significant impetus in its inception and design. The collective effort detailing this work at the HEJR was published as a JBJS Forum piece in June of 2006. He has continued to remain active in bringing the registry concept to a wider community, serving on a team competing for the AHRQ grant, and working with other VA surgeons on the concept of a total joint registry within the national VA system.

Catherine MacLean, MD, PhD
Payor Representative
Dr. MacLean is a board-certified rheumatologist and holds a PhD in Health Services. In her current position at WellPoint, Dr. MacLean heads the Center for Quality Measures and Improvement, which focuses on measures and programs to assess and improve health care quality. She has served in various capacities for the National Arthritis Foundation, American College of Rheumatology, National Quality Forum, AQA Alliance and the National Committee for Quality Assurance and served on the National Institute of Health’s Consensus Development Panel for total knee replacement. Her research at RAND and UCLA, where she maintains appointments, has included developing and assessing the validity of quality metrics including ones for arthritis and the need for knee and hip arthroplasty. She has published numerous original research papers and has participated in numerous research grants, most recently studying the use of registry data to measure and promote high value health care.

J. Wesley Mesko, MD
AAOS Representative
Dr. Mesko is a Charter Member of AAHKS and an AAOS Hip Program committee member. He is a Clinical professor of Surgery at the College of Human Medicine at Michigan State University and the Chairman of their Orthopedic Surgery Department. He has been a participant in IDE studies for ceramic on ceramic for Stryker and Biomet and has done post market outcome studies in the past with Depuy on HA vs Non HA coating on summit cementless hip stems. Dr. Mesko is a member of the IDE study group with Biomet on the Recap surface replacement and a member of the post market study with Styker on X3 poly in total hips. Dr. Mesko keeps a database on demographics, implants and clinical follow-up measurement tools since he initiated his practice in 1990. He currently has over 6000 total joint procedures on file. This information has helped him identify trends of implant problems before they were reported and make earlier modifications in implant selection.

E. Anthony Rankin, MD
AAOS Representative
Dr. Rankin currently serves on the AJRR Project Team and Legal/Regulatory work group. He was the Panel Chair at the NIH Consensus Development TKR in December 2003. Dr. Rankin is a former President of the AAOS and currently, he is chief of orthopaedic surgery at Providence Hospital, clinical professor at Howard University School of Medicine, and clinical associate professor (community and family medicine) at Georgetown University School of Medicine—all located in Washington, D.C. He specializes in adult reconstruction and hand surgery. He is a five-time recipient of a certificate of commendation from the District of Columbia. For 10 consecutive years, Dr. Rankin has been recognized by Georgetown University/Providence Hospital with their “Teaching Excellence Award” and is cited in the “The Best Doctors in America®.”

Eric Rugo
Industry Representative
Eric Rugo is the Vice President of Government Affairs & Health Policy for Stryker Corporation. Eric created and launched Stryker’s health policy and government relations activity in 2004. He has also developed the reimbursement capability for the group orthopaedic division of Stryker to address the growing need to understand this aspect of the business and continues to provide support at Orthopaedics, MedSurg and Corporate. Eric is often asked for strategic guidance on new technology and business development opportunities. Mr. Rugo is the lead representative for Stryker Orthopaedics to AdvaMed, the device industry’s primary trade association--targeting payment & policy issues. In addition to this role Eric has also taken on the responsibility of chairing the industry Orthopaedic Reimbursement Work Group. Within this role he works directly with member companies, CMS, and others assessing health policy related issues to identify how they will affect patient access, health care costs, and as inputs for Stryker to utilize in the management of its business.

Patience H. White, MD, MA
Patient/Public Representative
Dr. White is the Vice President of Public Health at the Arthritis Foundation and Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She is the architect of two current public health strategic directions for the Arthritis Foundation: 1. Increase awareness of osteoarthritis through securing a nationwide Ad Council Campaign partnership around prevention and control of osteoarthritis that launched in Feb. 2010 and facilitating a partnership with the CDC and 50 other organizations to create the National Public Health Agenda for Osteoarthritis and 2. Facilitate health care systems change to improve the early diagnosis and treatment of people with inflammatory arthritis through forging partnerships between the American College of Physicians and the American College of Rheumatology. Her leadership has facilitated the renewal and expansion of the Arthritis Foundation’s evidence-based programs for 46 million people with arthritis in the US. Dr. White oversees the development of diverse partnerships to increase the health of those with and at risk for arthritis and serves as the Foundation’s national spokesperson.

VACANT
Hospital Representative

Founded by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons March 2009

Contact Information

American Joint Replacement Registry 6300 N. River Road Rosemont, IL USA 60018 View map Phone 847-292-0530 Fax 847-292-0531
To Participate in the Registry contact: Caryn Etkin, PhD, MPH, Research Director Rosemont, IL USA 60018 View office Phone 847-430-5032

or Susan Hobson, MPH Research Associate Rosemont, IL USA 60018 View office Phone 847-430-5034

For Data information Contact: Randolph R. Meinzer, Information Technology Director Rosemont, IL USA 60018 View office Phone 847-430-5033

Administrative Contact: Lore Venable, Administrative Assistant Rosemont, IL USA 60018 View office Phone 847-430-5030

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