Guest Blogger: American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) Registry Program Committee Member Richard Seiden
Richard Seiden is the AAOS Registry Program Public Advisory Board (PAB) Chair and the PAB Representative on the American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR) and Shoulder & Elbow Registry (SER) Steering Committees. In this blog, he shares his personal experience as a joint replacement surgery patient (he’s had hip replacements, knee replacements, and shoulder replacements). Mr. Seiden offers patients helpful advice to better prepare for dealing with post-surgery needs. He indicated that he hopes sharing his experience will be helpful to other patients, but his advice is not a substitute for consulting with your physician.
As an arthritis patient who has had multiple joint replacement surgeries, I try to turn my experiences with a disease or a treatment into “lessons learned” from which others can benefit. In particular, I like to think that my own outcomes from joint replacement surgeries can be the basis for further education for other patients, physicians or surgeons, and others in the health care delivery system. I believe that each patient’s “lived experience” through surgery and recovery should be added to a collection of data and knowledge of similar procedures.
Although these may not be the only ways to accomplish the “lessons learned” objective, there are two principal ways in which patients can make a contribution to “libraries” of patient experiences, through (1) Registries, and (b) Patient-Reported Outcomes or “PROs.”