Quality improvement initiatives in the care and prevention of fragility fractures in the Asia Pacific region

Accepted/In Press date: 1 August 2022

e-pub ahead of print date: 20 August 2022

Published date: 20 August 2022

Additional Information: Funding Information: The authors express their sincere thanks to the numerous investigators whose work has been summarised in this review. The Asia Pacific Orthopaedic Association received sponsorship from Amgen Asia to support the activities of the Asia Pacific Fragility Fracture Alliance (APFFA). This publication was drafted independently by APFFA. Funding Information: In 2021, the Korea Ministry of Health and Welfare launched the pilot programme of home-based medical care, which is linked between acute hospital care and home-based care. The fees for education, discharge care plan and home-based monitoring are funded by the National Health Insurance system. Patients who receive major orthopaedic surgeries following fragility fractures are the target of this model as one of the indications. Given the potential restrictions and patients’ fear of face-to-face visits during the pandemic, this system allows patient education and home-based monitoring to be provided with telemonitoring and online communication. This pilot programme is a meaningful start to reimburse the coordinator-led clinical activities including patient education and home-based monitoring. It is expected to contribute to the implementation of integrated fragility fracture care in the clinical setting. Funding Information: In 2018, the Fragility Fracture Network of Korea (FFN-Korea) was organised under the leadership of the FLS Committee supported by the Korean Society of Bone and Mineral Research (KSBMR). The inaugural meeting was held in the form of the FLS Educational Symposium in October 2018. The first FLS Guidebook, aimed at developing a Korean ‘Blue Book’ by benchmarking against the British Blue Book [], was published in January 2019. In 2019, FLS coordinator education symposiums were held on four occasions supported by KSBMR. Since 2020, various virtual forms of coordinator education programmes have been provided to maintain training and educational activities for coordinators’ education despite the pandemic. A multicentre observational trial to investigate the effect of FLS on awareness of osteoporosis and its treatment improvement has been conducted in 11 regional hospitals across the country. Cha et al. reported current efforts to establish FLS in Korea and highlighted implementation challenges, such as the lack of awareness regarding the importance of this system and the lack of support by healthcare systems and health policies []. Funding Information: The Philippines now has six hospitals with a FLS on the IOF Capture the Fracture map. Despite the challenges brought about by the COVID pandemic, an expansion of the combined Orthogeriatric-FLS model undertaken in the second quarter of 2022. This expansion project was supported by a start-up Hip Fracture Registry which initially involved 14 hospitals in the country. Learnings from the FFN Clinical [] and Policy [] Toolkits, the IOF Capture the Fracture programme [], the Asia Pacific Bone Academy (APBA) FLS educational initiative [] and the Asia Pacific Fragility Fracture Alliance-FFN Hip Fracture Registry Toolbox [] were all major influences in the formation and implementation of this planned programme. The programme is funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST)-Philippine Council for Health Research and Development. The hope is that this will expand the hospitals with orthogeriatric centres and FLS, as well as lay the seeds for a sustainable Hip Fracture Registry in the Philippines. ® ® Publisher Copyright: © 2022, International Osteoporosis Foundation and Bone Health and Osteoporosis Foundation.

Keywords: Fracture liaison service, Fragility fracture, Orthogeriatrics, Osteoporosis, Systematic approach

Local EPrints ID: 472567

URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/472567

DOI: doi:10.1007/s11657-022-01153-2

ISSN: 1862-3522

PURE UUID: 89390ad0-f257-4d80-98e4-75de9ab25721

ORCID for Cyrus Cooper: orcid.org/0000-0003-3510-0709

Date deposited: 08 Dec 2022 17:36

Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 05:10