In 2016 The Executive Committee of the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons realized that multi-center clinical research efforts are an important way to move the field of shoulder and elbow surgery forward. As such, the ASES Multicenter Research Task Force was created to foster multicenter research efforts with two goals identified: 1. Create an ASES Registry for Shoulder Arthroplasty and 2. Develop a multicenter research group to study shoulder and elbow conditions of interest.

 

The AAOS soon contacted us to have us work on their mission of developing a Shoulder and Elbow Registry.  Work on a separate ASES registry stopped and Jed Kuhn, now Vice-President of ASES, joined the AAOS Shoulder and Elbow Registry Committee. The AAOS Shoulder and Elbow Registry (https://www.aaos.org/registries/registry-program/shoulder-and-elbow-registry/) is now active and as of May 2021 has modules for shoulder and elbow arthroplasty, rotator cuff surgery, and shoulder fractures, with over 129 hospitals/practices/ASCs entering data and over 6300 arthroplasty procedures. The AAOS Shoulder and Elbow Registry Committee Chair Gerry Williams, former ASES President, has recently signed an agreement making JSES Seminars in Arthroplasty the official journal of the registry. The registry is a great data source and research from the registry, and manuscripts published in JSES Seminars in Arthroplasty will be available for non-subscribers to download.

 

In 2016 a proposal was also made to interested parties of the ASES membership to form research groups studying questions developed by the ASES Executive Committee. The number of ASES members interested in leading and conducting multicenter research was overwhelming. As a result, by 2018 we created 12 distinct research groups, each studying a specific shoulder area of interest. In 2019, the Task Force became a standing committee and multicenter research groups were formed with Jed Kuhn as Chair and Carolyn Hettrich as Co-Chair.

 

At present, there are 18 ASES research teams that include over 150 of our members studying different essential questions regarding the care of patients with shoulder and elbow disorders. The work produced by these research teams in the next decade will profoundly improve our understanding of shoulder and elbow conditions, and significantly advance the treatment of patients. Many studies have already been published and many more are in various stages of review.

 

One of the most amazing aspects of this venture has been the fact that all this work has been accomplished on a shoe-string budget. Both OBERD and Arthrex offered data collection platforms for use by the various study groups at no cost. Projected funding for projects of this scale easily reaches into the millions of dollars and they are generally not of interest to industry because specific devices are not being exclusively studied. The burden then falls on our Foundation and generous donations from our members. Dr. Hettrich is leading an effort to obtain matching funds from the AAOS and we as a society must also support these efforts for the good of our patients. Who better than us can identify and study the most critical unanswered questions related to shoulder and elbow surgery?

 

I applaud our members involved with these projects for their efforts in advancing our knowledge in shoulder and elbow surgery and encourage anyone interested in participating to look at all the study groups to see where your input would be most valuable. I would also encourage us all to support these projects financially through generous donations to the Foundation.