Osteoporosis groups are banding together to learn more about why the Fracture Liaison Service (FLS) model of post-fracture care has not been more widely implemented in the U.S. Led by the National Bone Health Alliance (NBHA), National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF) and CECity.com, Inc. (CECity), the Bone Health Collaborative has announced the launch of a cloud-based Fracture Liaison Service Demonstration Study (FLS Demonstration) that will provide participating hospitals with the FLS model of care and CECity’s cloud-based MedConcert platform, to assess the hospitals’ adoption and implementation of a fracture liaison service across their communities. The FLS Demonstration Study, funded by Merck, is designed to demonstrate the ability to scale the FLS in the community setting, while measuring the impact on patient care.
Fracture Liaison Service Study Launched
The FLS Demonstration Study will leverage the experience and resources of each partner including NBHA’s fracture prevention knowledge and expertise; NOF’s expertise as the leading osteoporosis and bone health organization representing patients and healthcare professionals; and CECity’s MedConcert performance improvement platform, to engage providers in breaking down walls in order to build innovative communities of practice designed to improve the safety and quality of patient care.
The study will begin in early 2014 and run for approximately 12 months within the three initial sites selected for the study. The partners expect to publish results of the study by mid-2015.
“This Demonstration Project will advance the science of chronic disease management, ” said Dr. Sachin Jain, Merck’s chief medical information and innovation officer, in the December 5, 2013 news release. “By helping us scale Fracture Liaison Services and other chronic care programs, we will help delivery systems achieve better clinical results for their patients.”
Amy Porter, executive director and CEO of NOF, told OTW, “The Fracture Liaison Service Demonstration Study (FLS Demonstration) will track a number of quality and performance measures to evaluate the success of the study. We’ll know it’s successful a year from now if the data demonstrate improvement against these measures and that the program shows it is scalable in the community setting and has contributed to improvement in patient care, including patient diagnosis and treatment for osteoporosis.”
“The FLS Demonstration will help coordinate patient care across hospitals, medical offices and multiple medical specialties in the community to make it easier for doctors to communicate and ultimately improve safety and quality of care.”
Discussion
This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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