An Interview with Toby King & the USBJI

Toby King, CAE is the Executive Director of the USBJI

1. What is your organization’s interest in the Osteoarthritis Action Alliance (OAAA)?The USBJI has a vested interest in the success of the OAAA. Reducing the impact of all forms of arthritis is a primary concern of the USBJI, and especially OA as the most common form. Our interests are closely aligned particularly because of the Chronic Osteoarthritis Management Initiative (COAMI), initiated by the USBJI to propose ways providers can change the paradigm of care in the management of OA, and now to be incorporated into the OAAA. Under the USBJI, COAMI brought a wide range of professional stakeholder organizations together to agree on the need for change, and undertook some important first steps.  We look forward to seeing this needed change become a reality as part of the OAAA.

   2.  What do you think is the most important issue today related to osteoarthritis?

   There isn’t one overriding issue. The many challenges related to osteoarthritis need to be addressed in unison. It’s like building anything that consists of many parts. To work, the many parts need to be built together.

   3. How does your organization’s work connect to issues in osteoarthritis?

   USBJI’s mission is to advocate and promote multidisciplinary, coordinated, and patient-centered care to improve the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of musculoskeletal conditions.  Osteoarthritis is one of the most common and disabling of musculoskeletal conditions, so USBJI has strong impetus to support groups that are making a difference for people with osteoarthritis, such as OAAA. The USBJI is active on several fronts to focus attention and support for osteoarthritis treatment.

• First, we help supply key statistics about its impact on the world so we understand the scope of the problem (www.boneandjointburden.org).
• Second, we support efforts to increase research and education into understanding it better and learning how to overcome it.
• Third, we help promote collaborations among those in a position to effect change.

4. What is a headline you’d like to see about osteoarthritis in five years?

Osteoarthritis, the world’s most disabling disorder, is on the decline.

5. What is one interesting fact you’d like people to know about your organization?More than 1,000 new funded musculoskeletal research studies will likely have been achieved by participants of our Young Investigators Initiative by the end of 2017, many of the studies relating to osteoarthritis. And very likely, we will have held 1,000 sessions nationwide of our public education programs by year end, including Experts in Arthritis (www.ControlArthritis.org).