Antonia F. Chen, MD/MBA, is currently an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and the Chief of Arthroplasty and Joint Reconstruction. Previously, she was the Director of Arthroplasty Research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Prior to her time in Boston, she was the Associate Director of Research at the Rothman Institute in Philadelphia, an Associate Professor at Sidney Kimmel Medical College, and the Director of Medical Education Curriculum, Musculoskeletal Studies at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College and Thomas Jefferson University.
Antonia received her BS from Yale University and her MD from Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, where she graduated with a Distinction in Research and was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. She received her MBA from Rutgers Business School and is a member of the Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society. She completed her orthopaedic residency at the University of Pittsburgh and her fellowship in hip and knee arthroplasty at the Rothman Institute. Along with being a member of the Knee Society, she became the first female surgeon in the Hip Society. She is on the editorial board of 8 journals and was president of the Musculoskeletal Infection Society. She has authored over 350 publications, 45 book chapters, and four books, has won multiple research awards, and has presented all over the world.
What are your current roles and responsibilities in your organization?
I have been a hip andknee arthroplastysurgeon for almost ten years, specializing in hip and knee replacements. We strive to restore mobility to help our patients walk again and be fit and strong. My research study focuses on clinical outcomes after hip and knee replacement and also on pre-operative patient optimizationto improve postoperative outcomes.
My daily responsibilities involve either beingin the clinic or in the operating room. As chief, my primary concern is standardizing patient care across all ninearthroplasty surgeons to providethe best care possible. This is implemented through various system processes and changes to make our practices and operating rooms as efficient and safe as possible and provide a seamless experience to our patients.
What are some of the major challenges prevailing in the market in the arthroplasty field?
The prevailing market challenges lie in the use of technology. People have become proactive in leveraging technology in every aspect of their life. In the arthroplastyspace, the implementation of robotics and augmented reality is helping to perform joint replacements efficiently, making the procedure as precise as possible. This has become acompetitive industry, as multiple companies have developed these technologies to patient care by reducing the risk of complications. Optimizing patient experience has also become prevalent in the arthroplasty field to provide better outcomes and meet the growing demands of patients.
Increasing healthcare costs are another big challenge for the industry, reimbursements are decreasingwhile healthcare expenditure is increasing. Thus, the driver in healthcare is to minimize costs while delivering the best quality patient care, which can be difficult while trying to implement technology in arthroplasty.
Have you participated in any recent project initiatives regarding hip and knee replacements?
From the patient’s perspective, we are evaluating non-operative modalities to treat hip and knee arthritis. If non-surgical options fail, and a patient needs to undergo surgery, we are striving to minimize the pain associated with hip and knee surgery through multiple modalitiesto reduce the risk of opioid use and addiction. We have implemented multimodal pain analgesiato minimize the amount of painafter surgery and reduce the use of opioid medication.
How do you envision the future of this industry in the next 1 to 2 years?
We aim to reduce healthcare costs and make surgical procedures more cost-effective with better patient outcomes. Our focus will be on patient experience and patient reported outcomes as we go forward, to optimize outcomes after total joint replacement.
What would be one key piece of advice about totaljoint infection for your peers and upcoming industry professionals?
One key advice when it comes to infection would be prevention. If we can prevent infections from occurring in the first place, then this will obviate the need to treat infections.This can bestbe done by patient optimization, making the patient healthy before surgery by optimization conditions like diabetes and smoking cessation.The Intraoperative factors such as irrigation solutions and dressings can help tomitigate or reduce the likelihood of infection from the time of surgery. After surgery, postoperative factors such as anticoagulation should be taken into account to reduce the likelihood of sustaining an infection.
