The Baltic Fracture Competence Centre BFCC – Leveraging knowledge for better care in ageing societies in the Baltic Sea Region

Today bone fractures are a major public health problem in the Baltic Sea Region. The successful treatment of patients with fractures is challenged by major co-morbidities such as osteoporosis, infections and non-union. Optimisation of treatment and management of fracture care in Baltic Sea Region countries is absolutely necessary.

Today bone fractures are a major public health problem in the Baltic Sea Region. The successful treatment of patients with fractures is challenged by major co-morbidities such as osteoporosis, infections and non-union. A delayed or suboptimal fracture healing has a high impact on mobility, independence, quality of life, availability of work force and health care costs in the Baltic Sea countries. In the near future ageing society leads to an increasing number of older citizens and, due to age-related decreased bone quality, a steadily increasing number of fractures. The challenge is to improve the outcome of fracture treatment regarding functioning, participation, co-morbidities and health as well as socio-economic costs. Therefore, a better understanding of fracture healing is inevitable. Optimisation of treatment and management of fracture care in Baltic Sea Region countries is absolutely necessary.

Clinical and epidemiological registries are an important backbone of the research and innovation infrastructure for the improvement of fracture care relevant to clinicians, hospitals, primary care, health authorities, pharmaceutical and medical technology industry. They allow for the analysis of the prevalence and incidence of different fracture types in a population and region. They can provide a benchmark of the quality of treatment in different hospitals, quality and safety of medical devices such as implants, the health outcome or the cost-effectiveness of treatment across regions and countries.

Today Sweden and Denmark are frontrunners with well-established comprehensive fracture registries going beyond more limited approaches such as hip fracture and arthroplasty registries. They can serve as best practice for new and complementary fracture registries in other countries of the Baltic Sea Region.

To support improvement of fracture treatment and innovation, the Baltic Fracture Competence Centre BFCC aims at establishing new fracture registries in Germany, Lithuania and Poland and developing a transnational registry platform as well as collecting essential knowledge, making it available and boosting the exchange between experts. Such transnational integration of research competences and registry data will gain from the heterogeneity of fracture management at hospitals in different countries, comparing organisational approaches, health systems or work cultures thereby allowing for statistical analysis of small patient groups. This transnational research infrastructure will facilitate innovation for pharmaceutical, medical technology and biotechnology industry in the Baltic Sea Region.

This article is produced in the course of preparing the BFCC project submitted to Interreg Baltic Sea Region. BFCC is part of the EU Baltic Sea region’s flagship HealthRegion (Priority area 7 “Innovation” in the strategy).

Partners within the BFCC project in alphabetical order:Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-University Greifswald, LifeScience Krakow Klaster, Life Science Nord Management (Lead Partner), Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Odense University Hospital, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, ScanBalt, Stryker Trauma GmbH, University Hospital Krakow, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein,

For any inquiries and further information contact Imke Schneemann at schneemann@lifesciencenord.de