Novel methods to treat osteoarthritis

Despite the establishment of international recommendations, Austria still lacks a structured, guideline- and evidence-based orthopaedic treatment program for patients with knee osteoarthritis. To best fill this knowledge gap, the Lower Austrian Health and Social Fund (NÖGUS), together with the Austrian Health Insurance Fund (ÖGK) and the Insurance Institution for Public Employees, Railways and Mining (BVAEB), are spearheading and financing a pilot project. As a part of this project, the David Institute Krems is implementing AT-2.0, a structured, guideline- and evidence-based orthopaedic treatment program for patients with knee osteoarthritis. As this implementation program in is the first of its kind in Lower Austria, it is crucial to evaluate the quality of implementation and the achievement of objectives. In addition, systematic and data-driven knowledge will be generated to guide how similar programs can be designed effectively. As such, the Center for Evaluation has drawn up an evaluation plan. Firstly, the Center for Evaluation has developed a logical model that depicts the central components of the intervention, the most important interactions between the components, the desired results, and the most important external influencing factors. This model is based on the consensus of the aforementioned stakeholders and designed to inform them accordingly, taking into consideration a shared understanding of the intervention, the desired outcomes of AT-2.0, and the purpose of the evaluation. Building on this, the Center for Evaluation formulated evaluation questions, identified criteria and standards for answering these questions, developed a data collection and evaluation plan, and created a plan for reporting and disseminating the evaluation results. The result is a detailed, coherent, and written evaluation plan that outlines the intended procedure and chosen approach, the steps to be taken and methods applied (including the data collection plan), the specific responsibilities and reporting procedures, and the intended use of the evaluation. This project was funded by the Lower Austrian Health and Social Fund (NÖGUS).