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Quality Spine Care in Australasia

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Quality Spine Care

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Abstract

Australia and Singapore are both island nations in the Asia-Pacific region with different demographics but similar health systems. Chronic back conditions are common to both countries with associated significant healthcare expenditure and loss of quality of life. Reporting of quality indicators of healthcare is a relatively recent development in these two countries, and trends in both outcomes and patient experiences suggest that the rate of unfavourable events as a result of healthcare interventions remains high but comparable to other Western countries. With respect to spine care, there is great variability in the appropriateness of recommended treatments among healthcare practitioners and in the rates of operative interventions by spine surgeons. A spine registry has been well established in Singapore for many years but is only just being piloted in Australia. In both countries, there is a lack of integration of spine care quality data which makes the task of reducing unwanted outcomes and variability in practice a significant challenge for the future.

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Acknowledgement

The authors acknowledge the contributions of Prof. S.B. Tan (Director of Spine Service, Dept. of Orthopaedic Surgery, Singapore General Hospital), Mr. William Yeo (Senior Manager of the ODC) and Ms. Chong Hwei Chi (Senior Principal Physiotherapist).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Surgery, Canberra Hospital, Garran, ACT, Australia

    Bryan Ashman

  2. Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore

    John Chen Li Tat

Authors
  1. Bryan Ashman
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  2. John Chen Li Tat
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bryan Ashman .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    John Ratliff

  2. Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, NY, USA

    Todd J. Albert

  3. University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    Joseph Cheng

  4. Atlantic Neurosurgical Specialists, Morristown, NJ, USA

    Jack Knightly

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Ashman, B., Chen Li Tat, J. (2019). Quality Spine Care in Australasia. In: Ratliff, J., Albert, T., Cheng, J., Knightly, J. (eds) Quality Spine Care. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97990-8_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97990-8_12

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-97989-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-97990-8

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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