While a large share of the community experiences osteoarthritis, many people are not receiving the latest, evidenced-based care leaving them with poorer and more painful outcomes.
Health and government bodies are working to address the shortfall, investing resources to increase awareness of high-value care.
As part of this national approach, Kolling Institute researcher and physiotherapist Dr Jillian Eyles has received a prestigious $660,000 NHMRC investigator grant to promote best-practice osteoarthritis care.
Dr Eyles said experts know that the first-line approach for osteoarthritis involves non-surgical treatments based on education, self-management, exercise and weight control.
“This approach works well for many people and is consistently recommended by the clinical guidelines, and yet 64 per cent of people with osteoarthritis are not offered these treatments,” she said.
“We can see there are many barriers to delivering the best care from a lack of knowledge and skills of health professionals to traditional referral pathways.