AAOS 2026 Recap: Expanding Orthopaedic Recovery Support with PatientIQ Marketplace Partners

The 2026 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) Annual Meeting brought together surgeons, researchers, and healthcare leaders focused on advancing musculoskeletal care. Throughout the conference, conversations centered on improving patient outcomes, supporting recovery beyond the operating room, and finding new ways to deliver resources to patients at the right time in their care journey.

For the PatientIQ team, AAOS was an exciting opportunity to introduce a new initiative designed to support those goals. During the conference, we highlighted the PatientIQ Marketplace Partners program, which helps orthopaedic practices connect patients with trusted recovery products and services directly through digital care pathways.

 Expanding Support for the Orthopaedic Care Journey 

Orthopaedic care does not begin and end in the clinic or operating room. Patients often rely on a variety of resources throughout their treatment and recovery, including education, therapy tools, and post-operative support.

The PatientIQ Marketplace Partners program helps practices introduce these resources to patients as part of their existing care workflows.

Through the program, orthopaedic organizations can connect patients with trusted products and services that are delivered through PatientIQ care pathways. By embedding these offerings into digital patient engagement workflows, practices can ensure patients receive relevant information and recovery resources at the right point in their treatment journey.

Instead of relying on manual recommendations or disconnected processes, practices can incorporate these resources directly into the same workflows used to collect outcomes data and engage with patients before and after procedures.This approach helps simplify coordination for care teams while giving patients easier access to tools that support recovery.

Highlighting Marketplace Partners at AAOS

To introduce the Marketplace Partners program to the orthopaedic community, the PatientIQ team hosted a happy hour on Tuesday evening during AAOS.

The happy hour created a great opportunity to connect with surgeons, healthcare leaders, and industry partners in a more informal setting. Many of the conversations focused on how practices can better support patients throughout recovery and how digital tools can help deliver the right resources at the right time.

Attendees were particularly interested in how Marketplace Partners can help streamline patient education and recovery support while maintaining visibility within the patient care pathway.

These discussions reinforced a common theme across the conference. Orthopaedic organizations are increasingly looking for ways to extend support for patients beyond the clinic visit and into the full recovery process.

Connecting Recovery Resources with Outcomes Data 

The Marketplace Partners program builds on PatientIQ’s core platform, which helps orthopaedic organizations capture and analyze outcomes data across procedures and patient populations.

By combining outcomes data with digital care pathways, practices can better understand how patients recover while also providing resources that support that recovery. This approach allows organizations to track patient engagement, monitor outcomes, and introduce tools that may improve the overall care experience.

For orthopaedic teams, this means greater visibility into the patient journey from pre-operative preparation through post-operative recovery. For patients, it means easier access to helpful resources delivered directly through the care pathways they are already using.

Connecting with the Orthopaedic Community

AAOS is always one of the most energizing events of the year for the PatientIQ team. Throughout the week, we had the opportunity to reconnect with customers, meet new organizations exploring outcomes programs, and talk with partners working to advance innovation in orthopaedics.

Events like AAOS highlight how collaborative the orthopaedic community is. When clinicians, researchers, and technology partners work together, new ideas quickly turn into meaningful improvements in patient care.

We are grateful to everyone who stopped by to connect with our team or joined us during the Marketplace Partners happy hour.