American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR)

American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR)

American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR) is a not-for-profit organization, created in partnership with the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) in 2009 to create a national center for primary and revision hip and knee replacement data collection.

AJRR’s goal is to “leverage this comprehensive data to enhance the orthopedic quality of care, improve patient outcomes and safety, reduce costs, and advance orthopedic science and bioengineering.” The organization has experienced considerable growth since it officially began operations in August 2011. To date, more than 900 hospitals have elected to participate, and AJRR has collected more than 1 million procedures in the Registry.

Until recently, the AJRR was strictly a Level I data Registry. As of November 2015, participants are now able to submit Level III patient-reported outcomes data and very soon will be collecting Level II data. AJRR recommends four patient-reported outcome measures but accepts other measures as well. These recommended measures include HOOS JR, KOOS JR, PROMIS-10 Global, and VR-12. CODE is an authorized AJRR vendor, and if you want, can take care of the whole process for you.

In November 2015, the Registry also released its 2014 Annual Report covering data related to roughly 210,000 hip and knee replacement procedures. Among the many in-depth findings included in the report, the data provided this snapshot: “The mean age of patients undergoing knee procedures was 66.1 years old, which is similar to the mean age of hip arthroplasty. The mean age of hip arthroplasty patients was 67.0 years old.” This data can be further filtered by gender and other demographics.

AJRR committees and workgroups diligently assessed a variety of sources in the consideration of which variables to include in its Level II system, and how to advise participants to capture the relevant data. The variables decided upon represent patient comorbidities, risk variables, and surgical complications. AJRR encourages all participants to begin submission of Level II comorbidity data in 2016.

The National Registry aligns with several Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) quality initiatives. Submitting data to the AJRR can help your institution with the Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program a.k.a. Meaningful Use, Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS), and most recently, the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) model.

Participation in the Registry is free for providers to submit data. However, in order to access the data on AJRR’s Demand Reporting & Electronic Dashboard system, there is a small annual fee that starts at $2,850 per authorized user (plus a one-time configuration fee). AJRR offers multiple-year and multiple-institution discounts.

If you are ready to start collecting Level III data but are unsure of where to begin, you can start building a private data registry with CODE. Within 30 days of signing up, you will be fully up and running, collecting Level III outcome data at a 80% capture rate. Then, you can easily integrate your data with AJRR and compare it to national benchmarks.