The Rizzoli Orthopedic Institute is a Scientific Research Hospital, therefore its mission includes both assistance and healthcare research.

Clinical healthcare encompasses the whole range of orthopedics and traumatology (traumatic and/or degenerative diseases) and relevant rehabilitation. According to its mission, the Institute has developed, within the field of orthopedic diseases, specific treatments of particular complexity which, necessitating high professional and technological skills, can only be administered in a highly specialized hospital. These include:

• prosthetic surgery: hip, shoulder, and knee prosthesis;
• oncological orthopedic surgery;
• elective orthopedic trauma surgery on the spine;
• pediatric orthopedics;
• shoulder surgery;
• chemotherapy of musculoskeletal tumors;
• interventional radiology.

The highly specialized development of orthopedics has been combined with the setting up and expansion of special services, such as:

• the Musculoskeletal Tissue Bank, currently the regional and national bone bank;
• the Orthopedic Prosthesis Implantology Register (RIPO);
• the Biological Resource Centre.

Further fields of clinical and scientific interest include that of rare diseases of the musculoskeletal system, in which the Rizzoli Orthopedic Institute has developed research projects, and currently represents a reference center of the Emilia-Romagna region.