Osteoarthritis (OA) has a formidable impact on the burden of disability in older adults and a tremendous societal cost. To date OA has been managed unsatisfactorily in a primary care setting leading to increased patient burden and societal impacts on healthcare resources as well as indirect impacts on work disablement and carer burden. Providers typically address medical issues but do not adequately address patient concerns or functional limitations related to knee OA.
Our current approach to OA management is largely palliative; primarily aimed at reducing pain and improving joint function using agents that relieve symptoms and not facilitating improvement in joint structure. Furthermore, the current clinical model is a “one size fits all” treatment approach, which is largely suboptimal as it ignores the heterogeneity of patients and ultimately it is unclear if a sub selection of patients would benefit more from additional or different treatment strategies.
Current literature increasingly advocates effective early treatment in primary care through better identification of prognostic indicators that may be amenable to treatment and the need to tailor interventions to individuals using a bio-psychosocial model in order to optimize patient outcomes. With this in mind, the Osteoarthritis Chronic Care Program (OACCP) has been instituted into Australian Public Hospitals as a new approach to treating knee and hip OA.
This presentation aims to strengthen the importance of a multi-modal treatment delivery strategy in addressing knee OA to further emphasize the significance of adopting the OACCP throughout all Australian Hospitals.