AO Annual Report 2018

The AO's Annual Report for 2018 is now available online, looking at the challenges and achievements of 2018 through the prism of four separate chapters: patient outcomes, innovation, education, and corporate social responsibility.

Looking back at 2018, AO VET has a lot to be proud of. In an increasingly challenging environment, AO VET is constantly looking to ensure it stays innovative, responsive to community needs, and at the forefront of developing new partnerships.

The AO's founders understood that the AO is stronger, more innovative, and more likely to succeed when it works collaboratively. The AO's greatest asset remains the breadth of talent and diversity of specialties that it encompasses. Being able to pool resources in this way remains one of the AO's key advantages.

AO VET—central to cross-pollination at the AO

Since the first AO VET courses were offered almost 50 years ago, AO VET has been integral to ongoing processes of cross-pollination within the AO through the interplay between veterinary and human surgical innovations in the development of solutions for specific patient needs.

Unlike their human health care counterparts, AO VET clinicians and researchers see much greater patient variability even within one species. This is what pushes AO VET to be at the forefront of innovation at the AO.

Partnerships for growth

AO VET held 53 educational events in 2018, involving 2,486 participants, 1,125 faculty days, and 373 faculty. It has, in addition to this, been working to expand its relationships with other educational providers, as this is an essential element in ensuring that access to its outstanding educational offerings is maximized.

The growing partnerships with the American College of Veterinary Surgeons and with the European College of Veterinary Surgeons are significant areas on which AO VET has made progress in 2018. By partnering with these colleges and veterinary societies, AO VET seeks to build an ever-greater reputation as the go-to provider of education in veterinary orthopedics.

New benefits for the AO

In 2018, AO VET collaborated with the AO Strategy Fund on a project that is set to benefit the entire AO and the broader scientific community: the creation of a comprehensive database that will allow scientists to more effectively choose models for fracture research. This will help the development of new treatments and make it possible to improve patient outcomes. Importantly, it also minimizes the need for the use of animals in this process.

This database brings together over 4,000 journal articles—published from the 1970s to today—describing animal use in fracture research. Each year there are around 250 papers published in this field, and the database is built to grow. This offers researchers a single entry point to the comprehensive archive of research in this field.