Back surgeries have a long tradition in Orton and we have been an active developer of back surgery in Finland for decades.
Our most common back surgeries are microscopy- assisted disk protrusion removal, surgical decompression of spinal canal stenosis, and spinal fusion procedures. Our hospital has extensive experience also in demanding back surgery and scoliosis surgery. We have been installing spinal cord stimulators for the treatment of chronic pain conditions in our hospital for more than 20 years.
Monitoring data and results of quality of care associated with back surgeries
We consider it important that we continuously assess and monitor the quality of patient care.
We have been gathering monitoring data on back surgery patients since 2010. Our Finspine monitoring data are based on the Swedish National Quality Registry for Spine Surgery, which enables comparison of the quality of care with the results of back surgery in Sweden. The results of Swedish back surgery are of excellent quality by international standards. In Finland, there is no national register of back surgery in use yet. We have maintained a monitoring register related to spinal cord stimulator treatment in our hospital since the beginning of 2017.
In the graphs below, we have compared the outcomes of the quality of care of our most common back surgeries with the annually published results of the Swedish National Quality Registry for Spine Surgery.
Pain-induced disability in functional capacity has been quantified using the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), in which 0–20 equates to minimal disability and a value in excess of 40 to severe disability.
Table below:
Pain-induced disability in functional capacity experienced by the patient after a disk protrusion surgery. The disability experienced by Orton’s patients is smaller in scale than the disability experienced by the Swedes 1–5 years after surgery. Patients are operated in 2012.
Table below:
Patient satisfaction after disk protrusion surgery. Compared to the Swedish patients, Orton patients are more satisfied after 1 year, equally satisfied after 2 years, and clearly more satisfied 5 years after surgerySatisfaction (%) with the surgical result after a lumbar spine disk protrusion surgery. Patients operated in 2012.
Table below:
Pain-induced disability in functional capacity experienced by the patient after surgical decompression of spinal canal stenosis. The disability experienced by Orton’s patients is equal to or slightly smaller in scale when compared to the Swedish patients.