Outcomes
The other night I participated in a webinar about reverse total shoulder arthroplasty - a form of shoulder replacement surgery used in special circumstances http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00094 (btw, if anyone can tell me how to create the url link without cutting and pasting the whole url address, I would be very appreciative). I logged into a site called VuMedi (http://www.vumedi.com/), sat bank on my couch with a cold one, and listened in on an interactive set of presentations and discussions moderated by 5 experts in the field. It’s a really cool experience, and one that gets better over time as you begin to meet more and more of the people in the field. It begins to feel like an informal get together of friends.
The site is free to surgeons and houses expert surgical technique videos on a host of orthopedic surgical topics. They have a webinar about once per month that is now good for continuing medical education (CME) credit. It really is a tremendous resource as it makes a library of useful videos available for nothing. (Full disclosure- I am not an investor, receive nothing of value from VuMedi and do not currently have any videos posted on the site).
The site is owned and run privately by Roman Giverts. I don’t know the whole financing arrangement but I know he has received some private investment money from surgeons and his business model relies on support from industry (orthopedic device manufacturers-have their own separate channels on the site). The site has grown substantially in just over a year as more and more surgeons have posted their videos. What’s interesting is that the surgeons who post videos, make them available for free as well. They are remunerated in fame only. Not a bad business model. They leverage the surgeon’s need to “be known” (or desire to teach- if you look at more altruistically) to provide the free service.
More to my point…During the webinar, their was a mini debate between 2 surgeons regarding 2 different designs of shoulder prosthesis. As they were arguing about which particular biomechanical design characteristic was better, one thing stuck out at me: the only way to really know the difference between the 2 designs would be to study how they perform, head to head, for 20 years, in real people. Expensive? Time consuming? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely. It’s the only way.
The health reform debate is similar: only results matter. It all means doodly if, in the end, patients aren’t healthier.
