Årsrapport 2023 Nasjonalt kvalitetsregister for ryggkirurgi

Resultater og forbedringstiltak

Abstract

The Norwegian Registry for Spine Surgery (NORSpine) consists of three sub-registers for degenerative back-, degenerative neck and for deformity surgery. All surgical units report to the NORspine (100 % coverage), and the completeness is high. Of all being operated for degenerative disorders in Norway, > 80 % are captured in the NORspine, and > 80 % respond at 3 and 12 months follow up. However at some hospitals the registration completeness should be increased. For the newly started (2023) registry for deformity, completeness analyses are currently not available.
Waiting time before surgery has impact on the quality of treatment. Many hospitals have too long waiting time. After a focus on unwarranted practice variation in the use of prophylactic antibiotic treatment by the NORspine over some years, the hospitals now seem to have adjusted to the national guideline in this feld.
Despite an aging patient population, the the NORspine results are stable and of good quality. Better patient selection for surgery seems to be the key to further improvements. Therefore, several local quality projects connected to indication for surgery are ongoing.
In addition, the NORspine is working with integrating the registry into the electronic patient record (DIPS). This enables implementation of artifcial intelligence-based decision support, to improve patient selection for surgery in daily clinical practice, using NORspine data. Clinical testing of this new tool will be performed in 2024.