The Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Mount Sinai has once again been ranked nationally in U.S. News and World Report Best Hospital rankings. Leesa Galatz, MD, System Chair, shares the latest in research and innovation in orthopedics and the impact of COVID-19.
Hi, I'm Lisa Gal. It's system care of orthopedic surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine and the Mount Sinai Health System. We're proud to announce that this year were ranked number 24 for the U. S. News and World Report. This is based on a multi year compilation of our quality metrics as well as our volume. And this year we're proud to be one of the top 25 programs here in the Department of Orthopedic surgery at Mount Sinai. We are lucky to have a lot of very innovative and exciting research going on. We have a very robust orthopedic research laboratory, our spine services very active here, where we study disc biology. We also have a clinical trial looking at the effects of opioids on patients who are undergoing spine surgery. And we also have another clinical trial looking at the effect of automated text message system that go to patients who are undergoing surgery. The advantage of this is that it really helps them stay organized and informed throughout their journey through surgery. Of course, use of opioid medications is a big concern today, especially in the United States, and so we really feel that our clinical trials are going to have a significant impact on patients who are undergoing spinal surgery. Another very exciting research project that we have going on is looking at the use of artificial intelligence in helping patients, uh, become evaluated, but also helping surgeons plan, prepare for surgery and execute surgery. Specifically in this study were using artificial intelligence to measure what we call Cobb angles, which are the angles of deformity and patients with scoliosis, which is curvature of the spine. And by utilizing artificial intelligence to help us measure these curves, It also helps us prepare and execute surgery. So right now we're in data collection for this big project. But we're hoping that this can really also make an impact on patients and surgeons ability to correct large deformities. Another exciting thing that we have going on in the department is a trial looking at a product for osteoporosis, which is called a ballot para tied. This is a medication that is given to primarily older women with osteoporosis, but we are using this in a randomized clinical trial to see if it helps healing pelvic fractures. This is a multi center study with many hospitals in New York participating. So we're proud to be a part of this trial and our trauma services very closely involved. With this. The department has a robust joint registry for our hip and knee surgeries. We are one of a very few high volume centers for hip and knee surgery, and every patient who undergoes hip or knee replacement in our health system is put into our registry. What that enables us to do is to keep track of all of these patients so we can look at outcomes and we can also apply the principles of value based healthcare. What that means is making sure that patients get value for their health care dollar. This is more important than ever in orthopedics and in all of medicine. And we are one of the front runners in looking at ways to maximize value, to decrease expenses and to help the outcomes of patients undergoing hip and knee replacement. Specifically, one of the things that we found recently is that patients who are undergoing joint replacement, who have a lot of comorbidities or who are very complicated in terms of the other medical problems that they have those patients tend to center under a smaller number of hospitals. So what I'm trying to explain is that fewer hospitals take care of the most complicated and difficult patients. So when a person is looking around, what's important in looking at where a person decides to have surgery is there maybe centers that report high volume? However, there are fewer places that are used to taking care a very complex patients, either medically or complicated anatomically so. This is also something that we're able to study here at Mount Sinai in 2019. I'm proud to say that we had 100 and 59 publications, 19 competitive grant submissions, and we have over 100 and 25 ongoing clinical studies. So here at Mount Sinai, not only do we endeavor to create a very safe patient journey for surgery and to deliver world class clinical care, but we also take into consideration our educational programming and our research program. And in that way I feel like we really can have an impact on the way that orthopedic surgery is practiced both here in New York and beyond. The department was actually quite busy during Covid 19. We were hit very hard here in New York with the pandemic and as a part of planning and executing care for those patients. All elective surgery was stopped around mid March. Uh, and we didn't really resume that fully until June, and a lot of orthopedic surgery is elective. However, our physicians were deployed to help care for covid patients in the hospital. Our physician's assistants also provided tremendous support for the teams in the critical care units caring for these patients. Even our research coordinators were deployed to help with covid research, and our administrative assistance also assisted where they could. Our residents and our fellows were also deployed, uh, to help care for these patients. Uh, we help not only direct patient care, but supporting our colleagues who were taking care of those patients. So we helped coach them with donning and doffing personal protective equipment. Uh, like I mentioned, we helped with many of the research projects that are going on, and in fact, our research coordinators are still continuing these efforts. Um, so I'm very proud of the efforts of the Department of Orthopedic surgery. We rolled up our sleeves, uh, newer duty in terms of being health care providers, and we provided a lot of service to our community in that way. During that time,
