Turku University Hospital’s Tyks Orto is a top-level medical clinic focusing on injuries and diseases of the body’s musculoskeletal system. In Finland, it is a pioneer of maintaining quality registers, as the clinic has collected patient data to treatment quality registers for over 19 years. “BCB Medical’s orthopaedic registers and electronic MyHealth questionnaires from patients are essential everyday tools for us. They also form the core of the ongoing work to develop our operations. Through monitoring, we aim to improve the quality and effectiveness of treatment. Monitoring also helps in targeting the necessary procedures to the patients in need,” says Ville Äärimaa, Chief Physician and the Head of the Operational Division.

BCB Medical helps to develop the effectiveness of treatment

Yearly, approximately 12,000 first appointments are made to Tyks Orto. Every one of these patients is also covered by BCB Medical’s quality register monitoring. The data coverage of Tyks Orto’s orthopaedic register of back injuries and diseases is top of its class in Finland. This has also been noted on a national level at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare’s quality seminar.

Originally, the starting point for quality register research was to gather information about treatment results but also about related correlations: how various procedures that were performed and registered throughout the care pathway affected the results. Data registered by healthcare professionals is combined to patient-reported data in a remarkable way.

“MyHealth data, as reported by patients, is the very core of our quality registers, as all other data is linked to it. Our goal is to offer treatment that is as beneficial to health as possible, with minimal harm and costs. BCB Medical’s tools are a key factor in examining and developing our value creation,” Äärimaa notes.

Registers don’t just appear without active patients and professionals

Plenty of research improving the efficiency of treatment has already been done with quality registers. For example, an ongoing project compares the effectiveness of treatment between different patient groups. In addition to the client’s own reporting activity, a large amount of healthcare professionals is needed to gather and utilize data throughout the entire care pathway.

“The resulting data is defined by the quality of data fed into the system. For this reason, we and BCB Medical aim to simplify data collection in order to make the process less burdensome. Data management and data dredging consist of massive operations, and even small errors can corrupt the results.”

MyHealth questionnaires that track the patients’ healing process are an integral part of the care pathway. They give the patients a sense of security since professionals use them to follow the process systematically, starting from patient information forms to the end of treatment.

“It is in our best interest to have as comprehensive information as possible. We want our personnel to have monthly reports of the number of patients and their response rate within the scope of the register. This way, we can find out who didn’t reply, and we can reach out to them and ask how they are doing,” Äärimaa says.

It has been noted that patients are more honest about their functionality when asked by a machine, compared to talking with the operating surgeon during an appointment. Talking to a surgeon, many patients can even give an overly positive image of their condition.

“It must be noted that the data is not reliable if the response rate drops below 60 percent. This is why we and BCB Medical are planning improvements to activate patients about the follow-up of their treatment. Real-time feedback, for example, could be used for this. We and BCB Medical also have daily collaboration with various patient organisations that can help our patients in filling out the MyHealth questionnaires.”

Patient satisfaction results also interest the general audience

Every year, 8,000 surgical operations are carried out in Tyks Orto. Quality registers are an integral part of the decision-making progress when evaluating the necessity of operations compared to traditional treatment. Registers are also helpful during doctor-patient discussions as they help to clarify the effectiveness of different treatment methods.

“Our priority is to make the registration and reporting processes effortless at our end. We collaborate closely with Finnish national database and Nordic registers in gathering and analysis of data.”

“In addition to being available on scientific forums, I hope that the results of quality registers were also made public. Many people would undoubtedly be interested in seeing reliable, real-time figures on our website about the effectiveness of treatment,” Äärimaa speculates.
Quality register results from Tyks are already used for comparison in a larger scale, both nationally and internationally.

Long-term collaboration is built on learning together

Äärimaa notes that growing together and openness are BCB Medical’s strengths. With 20 years of everyday quality register work, challenges set by scheduling and changes have been well resolved, and the processes work smoothly both in Tyks Orto and BCB Medical.

“During the years, BCB Medical’s specialists have become well known to us. I appreciate that they are truly present and understand the context of our work. We have also been able to do some promising data runs in analytics,” Äärimaa says.

As the head of the operational division, Äärimaa envisages health solutions that can be literally carried in your pocket. With a mobile phone app, everyone could easily monitor their own health and assess the effectiveness of various treatment options that help in decision-making.

“I believe that quality registers can act like interpreters between healthcare professionals and patients. For all this to be possible, we will need to do a vast amount of work, as well as have top specialists that are fully committed to this work. I would like to thank BCB Medical, our own staff, and particularly the key personnel of our quality registers. Their work is critically important, and it affects both the well-being of our patients and the work of our entire healthcare personnel,” Äärimaa concludes.

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