Osteoarthritis Management With Other Chronic Conditions
I think that's a two-pronged approach. Part of what COAMI is doing is working with another initiative called the Osteoarthritis Action Alliance. That group is getting the message out to the public, patients and policy-makers about OA. At the same time, COAMI wants to do a similar thing, targeted toward healthcare providers, so that it includes everyone from physical therapists to occupational therapists to physicians to nurses, and so on. If patients are empowered and can say to their physician that they want to be asked about their joint health, especially if their family has a history of joint problems and had to have joint replacements, providers need to know how to answer those queries? If you send a patient to their physician empowered with that knowledge, the providers have to know how to respond. Currently, this is not the case as the organizations, as far as treatment is concerned, are not all uniform and the education of many healthcare providers does not really relate to these kind of issues, for example, arthritis and how to take care of it. Part of what COAMI wants to do is work on educating healthcare providers about this, coming up with commonalities across the different organizations so that there is a common message that can be transmitted to providers, so they know how best to help the patient. Right now, that unified message does not really exist. Guidelines about OA from different organizations do not all have the same final message and COAMI aims to address this. Currently, we are making an annotated bibliography that reviews all the various OA guidelines to try and locate where they all agree; COAMI will pick some of the areas of common agreement and decide upon which ones are the most feasible to take to the clinic, patient, physician and other education provider programs, so they are equipped to know what to do when individuals present with these needs.
Q: Do You Think There Needs to be a Change in Guidelines and Practice? Should It be Down to the Physician to Ask About Joint Care or the Patient to Mention It?
I think that's a two-pronged approach. Part of what COAMI is doing is working with another initiative called the Osteoarthritis Action Alliance. That group is getting the message out to the public, patients and policy-makers about OA. At the same time, COAMI wants to do a similar thing, targeted toward healthcare providers, so that it includes everyone from physical therapists to occupational therapists to physicians to nurses, and so on. If patients are empowered and can say to their physician that they want to be asked about their joint health, especially if their family has a history of joint problems and had to have joint replacements, providers need to know how to answer those queries? If you send a patient to their physician empowered with that knowledge, the providers have to know how to respond. Currently, this is not the case as the organizations, as far as treatment is concerned, are not all uniform and the education of many healthcare providers does not really relate to these kind of issues, for example, arthritis and how to take care of it. Part of what COAMI wants to do is work on educating healthcare providers about this, coming up with commonalities across the different organizations so that there is a common message that can be transmitted to providers, so they know how best to help the patient. Right now, that unified message does not really exist. Guidelines about OA from different organizations do not all have the same final message and COAMI aims to address this. Currently, we are making an annotated bibliography that reviews all the various OA guidelines to try and locate where they all agree; COAMI will pick some of the areas of common agreement and decide upon which ones are the most feasible to take to the clinic, patient, physician and other education provider programs, so they are equipped to know what to do when individuals present with these needs.