AO NORTH AMERICA NEWS

AO/ASIF Spine faculty members take a photo opportunity break during the AONA Spine Faculty forum in October 1996 in Colorado Springs.		Tom DePasquale from Tampa uses a variety of teaching and artistic skills while instructing his Table at the Marco Island Basic and Advanced AO Course last May.
Maxillofacial faculty relax at a reception held during the Maxillofacial Faculty Retreat at the Sagamore resort in New York state in August 1996. Left to right: Greg Evans, Gerry O'Danile, and Randy Rudderman.		Some of the Faculty (incognito except for René Marti) enjoy a dinner during the AO/ASIF Advanced Symposium on Management of Complex Fractures and Failed Internal Fixation. This course, chaired by Keith Mayo and Eric Johnson, was held in San Francisco in November 1996.

AO North America Supports Orthopaedic Trauma Association Database

Several years ago, the Orthopaedic Trauma Association, under the guidance of Dr. Mark Swiontowski, began development, in association with the comprehensive Long Bone Fracture Classification, of a compendium of codes for all fractures and dislocations of the musculoskeletal system. Along with this went a database. Through the support of the Orthopaedic Trauma Association, both of these enterprises have come to fruition this year. The compendium has been completed and published as a supplement to the Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma and the database, known as Ortho Trauma, allows the documentation of these various injuries, along with the appropriate patient characteristics. This allows for the documentation and tracking of injuries. AO North America has had a major interesting in coding and classification in a cooperative manner with the Orthopaedic Trauma Association, and with AO Documentation. As these projects are mutually compatible with the goals of AO North America, it was decided to support the funding of a resource person for the ongoing development of the database. This individual will be responsible for maintaining and developing the needed changes over the next several years with regards to the database, working on the conversion of data in the older Orthopaedic Trauma software registries, as well as working in the development area for future integration between this database and other areas in order to provide a decentralized computer-linked Trauma Registry.

With the AO North America sponsorship of this individual, the North American concept of prospective Trauma Documentation is very close to reality.

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