Two Million and Counting: American Joint Replacement Registry Reaches Major Milestone

The American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR), the cornerstone of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons‘ Registry Program and the world’s largest national registry of hip and knee joint replacement data by annual procedural count, announced that it reached and surpassed its 2 millionth hip and knee procedure with the input of data from Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Tracking an additional 1 million procedures since 2017, the Registry Program gives orthopaedic surgeons and providers the most comprehensive picture to date of trends in hip and knee arthroplasty practice and outcomes in the United States. 
 
“This is an incredible milestone for the AJRR. We are thrilled to see so much enthusiasm from our participating sites to contribute actionable data to this important orthopaedic Registry,” said David D. Lewallen, M.D., FAAOS, one of the founding leaders of the AJRR and orthopedic surgeon at Mayo Clinic. “AJRR not only helps orthopaedic surgeons review their cases against a growing list of national statistics and analytics, but its interactive abilities help users filter data in new and meaningful ways identifying important practice changes that can benefit millions of American patients going forward.”
 
Daniel J. Berry, M.D., FAAOS, founding leader and immediate past chair of the AAOS Registries Oversight Committee and orthopedic surgeon at Mayo Clinic, added, “The AJRR is a powerful tool that is guiding the future of hip and knee joint replacements. As a participant in each of the AAOS registries, it’s exciting to see the AJRR achieve this milestone and fuel momentum that is helping improve orthopaedic outcomes in this country.” 
 
The AJRR enhances the way orthopaedic surgeons, hospital systems, ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), and private practices track joint replacements by allowing them to compare procedure performance on an individual, site, and system level through dashboards and reports offering access to national benchmarks and methods. The Registry supports patients by providing tools to surgeons so they can reduce complication and revision rates, offering surveillance for poorly performing implants, and including patient-reported outcomes (PROMs). At present, AJRR represents nearly 1,400 U.S. medical institutions and more than 11,000 participating surgeons with data coming from hospitals, ASCs, and private practice groups from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
 
Since AJRR’s launch in 2009 (data collection began in 2012), AJRR’s platform has elevated its scope of tracking capabilities. Most recently, AJRR added the ICD-10 code to monitor the impact of COVID-19 on patients undergoing future hip and knee joint replacement procedures. Tracking COVID-19 data will help analyze the impact of COVID-19 on outcomes, trends of surgery based on the pause in elective surgery, and the trends of PROMs due to delayed procedures.
 
The American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR), the Academy’s hip and knee replacement registry, is the cornerstone of the AAOS’s Registry Program, and the world’s largest national registry of hip and knee joint replacement data by annual procedural count, with more than 2 million procedures contained within its database. Additional registries include Shoulder & Elbow Registry, the Musculoskeletal Tumor Registry, and the American Spine Registry, a collaborative effort between the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) and the AAOS.