Patient-Reported Outcome Measures-What Data Do We Really Need?

Overview

The Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services has recently announced the inclusion of several patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), including the abbreviated Hip Disability and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score and Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score for joint replacement (HOOS, JR and KOOS, JR) for the purpose of quality assessment in total hip and total knee replacement (THR and TKR). Historically, Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services and other agencies have used measures of process (eg, % vaccinated) or adverse events (eg, infection rates, readmission rates) for quality assessment. However, the use of PROMs has become a priority based on stated goals by the National Quality Strategy and Institute of Medicine for a more patient-centered approach. Here, we review several general health and joint-specific PROMs, which have been extensively used in research to assess treatment efficacy and discuss their relevance to the new criteria for quality assessment, particularly for THR and TKR. Although we expect HOOS, JR and KOOS, JR to yield much useful information in the near term, these surveys are likely an interim solution. In the future, we anticipate that novel measurement platforms, such as wearable technologies or patient-specific surveys, may open new and exciting avenues of research to discover which types of data-perhaps not previously available-best represent patient quality of life and satisfaction after THR, TKR, or other orthopedic procedures.