This year’s CCJR show is being held at the ARIA in Las Vegas.  Topics include:

• Joint Replacement 2012:  Challenges that Confront Us
• Results of Hip, Knee, & Shoulder Replacement
• Alternative Bearing Surfaces:  Hopes & Concerns
• Tips & Techniques of Successful Arthroplasty
• Implant Fixation: Options & Outcomes
• Complex Management Issues:  Before & After
• Alternatives to Hip, Knee, & Shoulder Arthroplasty
• Case Challenges in Hip, Knee, & Shoulder Replacement

InVivoLink is honored to have been chosen as a West Coast Finalist by the BluePrint Health IT Summit.   InVivoLink joined other accomplished healthcare IT companies such as abilto (video conference behavioral health programs), CECity (cloud-based performance improvement programs), Coriendo (care coordination solutions that span health care settings), ForwardHealth Group (population management solutions), Healthcare Quality Catalyst (healthcare CQI solutions), Health Fidelity (natural language processing tools), iLabs Medical (mobile data feed from EMRs), MEDgle (health data analytics), and MIM Laboratories (online and mobile dermatology solutions).

Click here to see an interview at BluePrint with InVivoLink’s CEO, Ryan Wells.

Dr. Bozic is an active adult reconstructive surgeon who currently serves on as an associate professor and vice chair of the department of Orthopedic Surgery at the University of California San Francisco, and as a member of the Core Faculty for the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies.  Dr. Bozic is very active in healthcare policy initiatives including the American Joint Replacement Registry, the California Joint Replacement Registry, IHA’s Bundled Payment Project, AHRQ Effectiveness Stakeholder Group, and the Orthopeaedic Research and Education Foundation.

Dr. Bozic’s experience, research and passion for physician-driven, patient-centered, quality-driven medicine give him excellent perspective on healthcare reform and its role in orthopedic care.  Dr. Bozic and InVivoLink share a common vision to, in Dr. Bozic’s words, “build multi-stakeholder collaborations focused on enhancing the value of musculoskeletal care.”

“We are at a critical juncture for health care in the United States. The government is not equipped to provide solutions for the long-term sustainability of our healthcare system. This creates great opportunities for physician leadership in healthcare reform. We have the ability to collaborate with hospitals, health plans, policy makers, government agencies, payors and patients. Orthopaedic surgeons are well-positioned to lead patient-centered reform in our healthcare system. I invite my colleagues to fill this void with your compassion and expertise,” said Dr. Bozic.

BlueCross Blueshield: The health-insurance behemoth is pouring roughly $300 million into startups such as … InVivoLink, which tracks and analyzes data from medical implants.

At this year’s annual AAOS meeting, the American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR) announced that they were “open for business.”… Last week, Nashville, Tennesse-based InVivoLink published a joint press release with the AJRR to announce that they would be enabling a direct feed of registry data to the national registry.

InVivoLink has partnered with the American Joint Replacement Registry to collaborate on technology that would automate the feed of orthopedic implant data to AJRR’s registry platform, according to a joint news release.

February 7, 2012 (Nashville, Tenn.) — InVivoLink and the American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR) have announced the two organizations will collaborate on technology that automates the feed of orthopedic implant data to the AJRR’s registry platform. The direct link between InVivoLink’s registry data acquisition tools and the AJRR facilitates a nationwide orthopedic implant registry project designed to monitor medical device performance and improve patient outcomes.

“The AJRR’s new collaboration with InVivoLink is a valuable one, because it strengthens the AJRR’s mission of improving patient safety and increasing quality of care while removing costs,” said David Lewallen, M.D., chair of the AJRR.

Projected growth in total joint replacement procedures coupled with their rising costs present significant challenges for providers and payers. The combined initiative by InVivoLink and the AJRR addresses these issues by providing data to support evidence-based medicine, identifying patients at risk for poor outcomes, improving the tracking of complication rates, and enhancing management of device recalls.

InVivoLink is a web-based platform that automates implant registry data capture throughout the continuum of care. InVivoLink’s innovative data collection process simplifies providers’ participation in local and national registry initiatives by using automated processes and delivering high-quality data.

“As a former total joint replacement surgeon at The New Mexico Center for Joint Replacement Surgery and one who has maintained a comprehensive research database for all total hip and knee replacements since 1982, I understand the importance of collecting accurate data associated with the patient and his or her implants. Now that I’m in an administrative role with a hospital, I value the efficient and effective mode of data collection through InVivoLink’s process. Having their assistance in gathering the right metrics for not only a national joint registry but also monitoring fiscal performance has been a tremendous success,” said Richard E. White, Jr., M.D., who practiced in Albuquerque for 30 years and currently is an administrative consultant for clinical and fiscal development in total joint replacement for the three hospitals of Lovelace Health System in Albuquerque.

“InVivoLink is dedicated to supporting the AJRR’s initiative by making it easy to participate in the national registry while providing an overarching value proposition to the hospital,” said Ryan Wells, InVivoLink CEO. “What we are doing is remarkable because it is a system that supports evidence-based medicine while paying for itself through operational value to the hospital.”

About the American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR)

The AJRR is a multi-stakeholder, independent, not-for-profit organization with diverse national constituents and the goal of optimizing patient outcomes through collection of data on all primary and revision total joint replacement procedures in the U.S. The mission of the registry is to improve patient safety, increase quality of care and reduce the cost of care. Learn more at http://orthodoc.aaos.org/ajrr/grp_index.cfm.

About InVivoLink

InVivoLink (IVL) collects, monitors and disseminates medical device data via its implant registry technology. IVL works to improve clinical outcomes, elevate the patient experience, and remove waste throughout the continuum of care by enabling providers to more effectively engage patients and partners. For more information, visit www.invivolink.com.

# # #

InVivoLink will be at the 2012 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Conference in San Francisco, February 7-11.  Set up a meeting with an InVivoLink representative to learn more about how InVivoLink’s technology streamlines Level 3 Registry initiatives, collects and analyzes quality data, improves orthopedic research, and puts physicians in position to control practice risks over the episode of care.

InVivoLink will be hosting a series of events during AAOS to celebrate a number of significant milestones since AAOS 2011, including:

• Growth within two large U.S. for-profit hospital systems
• Level 3 registry projects implemented in one of the largest U.S. no-profit hospital systems
• Advancing a community hospital’s efforts to participate in a CMS bundled payment initiative
• Adoption in one of the Acute Care Episode (ACE) demonstration sites

For more information, contact Tim Kinner ( tkinner@invivolink.com ).

•  Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s bionic leg
• Smith & Nephew’s iPod Touch interface for its Dash Smart Instrument System
• The ComforMIS iTotal Knee Replacement System
• The Artificial Muscle-Operated (AMO) Arm developed by students at Ryerson University