Dr. Matt Hunt, current Society president, presided over the meeting.
The Program
The Minnesota Neurosurgical Society’s spring meeting was highlighted by a talk presented by Jim Chase and Jasmine Larson from the Minnesota Community Measurement organization about the spine surgery project started as a pilot program two years ago. Data collection for this pilot project is complete for the two procedures under study, lumbar discectomy and lumbar fusion. Analysis of the pilot program data will begin during summer, 2014. Following review and discussion of the initial data, statewide implementation of this quality tracking program for these two common spine surgeries could begin as early as May, 2015. Initially, blinded data from the pilot study and subsequently for the initial stage of the statewide rollout will be available to spine surgeons and stakeholders through a password protected portal. After this data is provided to the public however none of the collected data, organized by clinic site, will be blinded. Data will be shared with providers before publication and an appeals process is planned for suspected aberrant outcome measures. It is also possible that at some point this outcome data may be reported publicly by provider.
Mr. Chase believes that it is likely that this data will be viewed by the public as a means of making provider choices for surgical procedures. The larger use of the data may be to drive value-based purchasing decisions from large referral groups operating under an accountable care organization model.
MNNS Spring Agenda
The Society’s agenda was dominated by planning for the next Minnesota Neurosurgical Society Academic Conference scheduled for Friday, September 26th through Sunday September 28th, 2014. This meeting will be headquartered at the St. Paul Hotel with the annual banquet at Pazzaluna. The Society is holding a block of rooms at the St. Paul Hotel with a room rate of $179/night. The St. Paul Hotel is located across from Rice Park in the heart of St. Paul. The Science Museum, Ordway Theater, Landmark Building and historic St. Paul Library are just steps from the hotel. The immediate area is also rich in great shopping and dining choices. A large, active meeting is anticipated so save the date now. Full registration and event details as well as a call for abstracts will be available soon.
Dr. Ann Parr reviewed Council of State Neurosurgical Societies (CSNS) proposed resolutions recently presented at the CSNS national meeting. These proposals include a proposal which originated from this society, authored by Dr. Parr, to study the feasibility of reviewing preauthorization requirements for common neurosurgical procedures from health insurance companies through application of evidence-based analysis. Insurance companies could then be graded for the applicability, quality and feasibility of these measures. The result of this analysis might then be made available to the public to drive value-based purchasing decisions for consumers when choosing insurance companies.
Dr. Hunt has proposed adding a strategic planning and review session to the Sunday business program planned for the final day of the Academic meeting, Sunday, September 28th. The purpose of this effort would be to assess the organization currently and establish goals as the organization grows.
Minnesota Neurosurgical Society 