Bone and Joint Canada

James P. Waddell, M.D., FRCSC
Coordinator, Canadian National Action Network
for the Bone and Joint Decade

Bone and Joint Canada, part of the Bone and Joint Decade National Action Network for Canada, has convened a third meeting of orthopaedic surgeons and patient advocacy groups from across the country to address ongoing issues regarding the provision of musculoskeletal care. In addition to participation from every province and/or region of Canada in which significant orthopaedic surgery activity occurs, for the first time we also had high level government representation at this meeting to develop an exchange of ideas around the effective delivery not only of hip and knee replacement surgery but also paediatric orthopaedic surgery, non-joint replacement surgery in the adult population and osteoporosis.

With the participation of Osteoporosis Canada and the Arthritis Society as well as the Canadian Orthopaedic Foundation, we continue to engage patient advocacy groups in these discussions to ensure that patient needs remain in the forefront of these deliberations.

The addition of government representatives from various health ministries across the country allowed the orthopaedic surgeons to engage in a discussion around policies and spending priorities as well as permitting the government representatives to directly question orthopaedic surgeons from across Canada regarding problems that we encounter in delivering appropriate care.

Dr. Colleen Flood, Scientific Director of the Institute of Health Services and Policy Research, chaired a forum consisting of orthopaedic surgeons, provincial health officials and federal health officials to help define the significant issues impeding our ability to shorten wait times for orthopaedic surgery. This will allow the members of the Bone and Joint Canada Committee to help develop strategies that will be of use to the membership across the country in practice management and wait time strategies. We anticipate a fourth meeting of this group will be held at the time of the Annual Meeting in Halifax; we are hoping for the opportunity to address the membership of the Canadian Orthopaedic Association regarding our deliberations and recommendations that have been made through this series of meetings.

On the international front, the Bone and Joint Decade continues to be extremely active in all the countries in which National Action Networks have been established. The next international meeting will be held in Australia October 10-14, 2007. As in the past, in addition to representation from many of the involved countries, the International Steering Committee (ISC) will lay out a strategy for the coming year in terms of our continued activities regarding musculoskeletal health in general. Once again, the ISC will provide an opportunity for a patient representative from each of the countries to attend the meeting. This was done last year for the meeting in South Africa and we have asked CAPA to nominate someone from their organization to travel to Australia to speak for Canadian patients suffering from arthritis.

The Canadian National Action Network will continue to emphasize timely access to care for orthopaedic patients in Canada in addition to continuing to support the educational efforts of Osteoporosis Canada and continuing to support the curriculum renewal for undergraduate medical education in musculoskeletal diseases.