Use of Patient-Reported Outcomes: Rationale and Clinical Implementation

Routine collection and use of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) benefits patients, providers, and health care organizations. PROs are useful in clinical decision making, in measuring and improving patient experience, in research, and in quality improvement. They are of increasing fiscal importance as payers transition to value-based reimbursement. Through a quality improvement project using a Plan-Do-Study-Act framework, team members developed a process to increase the PRO collection rate from 4% to more than 85% of eligible clinic visits. Incorporation of PRO collection into the clinic workflow is facilitated by multidisciplinary collaboration and recognition of the value generated by the process.