NSN's History
The National Spine Network (NSN) is a non-profit, integrated spine registry and clinical trial network. Formed in 1994, NSN's members initially were large, academic, research oriented practices that are recognized as Centers of Excellence for spine care.
In 2006 NSN modified its original membership concept and developed an ambitious long term vision. NSN has become a broad-based, multidisciplinary membership organization whose members include both large, academic, research oriented practices and smaller community-based practices.
- From 1995 to 2004 NSN members entered over 60,000 patients into the NSN Spine Registry using paper case report forms. Using this registry, NSN members have published many papers in peer-reviewed journals and have given numerous presentations at prestigious national and international conferences. The NSN Spine Registry has also provided an effective way to test research hypotheses prior to undertaking clinical trials;
- NSN has developed an informatics platform (SpineChart) to collect patient and clinical data electronically.
- Providing the physician with automated documentation to improve productivity;
- Integrating the collection of the data required for standard patient care along with the data required for research;
- Simplifying patient outcomes submission to the NSN Spine Registry;
- Reducing the start-up time and the overall costs of multi-center clinical trials.
- NSN's Clinical Trial Network has enabled its members to participate in both public and privately funded clinical trials, including the NIH/NIAMS grant entitled “Low Back Pain — A Multicenter Randomized Trial”, Dr. James N. Weinstein, DO, Principal Investigator. Clinical Trial: Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial (SPORT) - Intervertebral Disc Herniation These clinical trials have made use of NSN's Spine Registry, NSN's network of research oriented spine centers and NSN's SpineChart software.
