London, Ontario (January 28, 2014): Ortech Data Centre (Ortech) announced today that the Company has been chosen to design and manage the North American Spine Society (NASS) registry. This achievement represents the third large scale registry Ortech has secured and solidifies the Company's position as a leader in health care data management and analysis.
The objective of the NASS registry is to collect de-identified data that will enhance understanding of spine care treatments, patient outcomes and the natural history of spine disorders. The initiative will begin as a pilot which will test the data collection process, platform and measures, as well as determine the administrative and cost burden to participants before expanding the registry to the NASS membership.
"The driving force behind the NASS registry is the ability for the first time to document the comparative effectiveness of various strategies and treatments for patients with lumbar spinal disorders," said Dr. Zoher Ghogawala, MD, NASS Clinical Research Development Chair. "The reason the effort is so important is the costs associated with spinal care in United States are now estimated to exceed $100 billion a year. To put this into perspective, studies have shown that the cost of all spine care in the United States is equivalent to the cost of all cancer care in the United States. For people who don’t think about numbers, spine is a big-ticket item," said Dr. Ghogawala, who is leading the development of the registry with Dr. Daniel K. Resnick, NASS Research Council Director.
"The entire Ortech team is proud to be affiliated with NASS," said Jeff Guerin & Sean Volkaert, Ortech Co-founders. "We are delighted to be selected as the organization to work with NASS on their registry initiative and to help them achieve their data collection and analysis goals."
About the North American Spine Society (NASS)
The North American Spine Society is a multidisciplinary medical organization dedicated to fostering the highest quality, evidenced-based and ethical spine care by promoting education, research and advocacy. NASS is comprised of more than 8,000 members from several disciplines, including orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, physiatry, neurology, radiology, anesthesiology, research and physical therapy.
About Ortech Data Centre (Ortech)
Ortech is widely considered the industry leader in orthopaedic registries. The company has built registries in a diverse range of hospitals and private clinics across North America. Ortech has also designed and currently manages large scale registries including the North American Spine Society, the California Joint Replacement Registry and the Michigan Arthroplasty Replacement Collaborative Quality Initiative.
Ortech's web-based product was designed in collaboration with several leading orthopaedic surgeons across North America. Their product allows health care providers to efficiently capture intra-operative and implant data, as well as patient reported outcomes in order to measure and analyze patient progress. Many hospitals and private clinics use this data to measure quality of care, to enhance marketing capabilities and to improve negotiations with insurance companies.
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