Medical Registries explained: The hidden key to healthier nation an interview with Prof Richard Page.

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The silent revolution happening in healthcare often goes unnoticed by patients, but medical registries have fundamentally transformed how medicine is practiced—particularly in orthopaedic surgery.Join Dr Gavin Nimon ( Host and Orthopaedic Surgeon ) as he interviews Professor Richard Page and they pull back the curtain on these powerful databases that track surgical outcomes across entire populations.

As the former Deputy Director of the Australian Orthopaedic Association National Joint Replacement Registry, Professor Page reveals how these systems have saved approximately $1.2 billion in healthcare costs while dramatically improving patient outcomes. The Australian registry, considered world-class, has tracked over 2.2 million joint replacements with extraordinary detail and accuracy exceeding 99%.

What began with passionate surgeons manually recording data has evolved into sophisticated systems that provide early warning signals when implants underperform. Professor Page shares the fascinating story of how shoulder replacements were integrated into the national registry—initially by surgeons who simply crossed out "knee" on data collection forms and wrote "shoulder" instead. This persistence paid off, with shoulder replacements growing from approximately 1,000 annually to nearly 12,000, making it the fastest-growing joint replacement procedure in Australia.

The registry has revealed crucial insights: total shoulder replacements outperform partial replacements for osteoarthritis, and reverse shoulder replacements have proven remarkably successful despite initial skepticism. These findings directly influence surgical decisions and have reduced revision rates by nearly 4%, sparing hundreds of patients from additional operations.

Looking forward, Professor Page describes an exciting future where registries integrate with AI, smartphone technology, and wearables to provide real-time monitoring of patient function. These powerful databases are evolving from quality assurance tools into platforms for innovative research, international collaboration, and personalized medicine.

Explore this fascinating conversation to understand how systematic data collection is quietly revolutionizing healthcare delivery and improving lives. What other medical advances might be hiding in plain sight within these vast repositories of patient data?

Aussie Med Ed is sponsored by -HealthShare is a digital health company, that provides solutions for patients, General Practitioners and Specialists across Australia.

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