Abstract
Background: Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) provide valuable insights into patients' perspectives on their health status, enabling healthcare providers to deliver patient-centred care and improve healthcare outcomes.
The aim of this initiative is to put in systemic enablers to empower healthcare providers to drive patient-centred care and engage patients in playing an active role in their healthcare journey by increasing the adoption of Patient Reportable Outcome Measures (PROMs).
Approach: To drive systemic change in adopting use of PROMs in clinical care, TTSH formed a multi-disciplinary sub-committee to empower healthcare providers to drive patient-centred care and engage patients in playing an active role in their healthcare journey by increasing the adoption of PROMs. The PROMS sub-committee also looks into the spread and scale of PROMs usage, providing advice and support for new teams coming onboard usage of PROMs. This sub-committee is supported by the Value Office and engages an average of 7 teams a year for PROMs project implementation.
In 2021, it was observed that only 51% of disciplines at TTSH were using PROMs. By conducting root cause analysis, it was identified that low awareness of the value of PROMs was a major barrier to the adoption PROMs in clinical practice.
The PROMs Subcommittee developed a three-pronged strategy to tackle this issue. This strategy includes:
a) Clinician Education: To educate clinicians on the use and value of PROMs in clinical practice to promote point-of-care engagement with patients.
b) Patient Education: To raise awareness and educate patients on what PROMs are and how they could actively participate in their own healthcare journey, patient education materials such as brochures and video are made available in clinics.
c) IT Enablers: To increase accessibility of PROMs for patients and healthcare providers through implementation of automation tools such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA), and set-up of PROMs Kiosks.
Results: In the two years after the rollout of PROMs strategy, the following results were observed:
a) Number of disciplines adopting PROMs increased by 16%, with a total of 82 unique PROMs tools implemented across various disciplines.
b) Number of patients participating in PROMs conversations increased by 46%, from 60,000 to 87,400.
c) Number of cases utilising IT enablers in PROMs administration increased by 120%, from 11 to 24.
d) The rollout of robotic process automation to automate data collection at 2 clinics has resulted in approximately $$71,520 per annum in manpower cost savings.
As the approach addresses healthcare provider and patient perspectives simultaneously, it had successfully demonstrated its potential to transform healthcare delivery by integrating patient voices more effectively into clinical practice
Implications: This three-pronged strategy was effective in increasing PROMs adoption, and application in other settings, such as primary care or home care, may be considered. We have also seen an increase in awareness and understanding of what PROMs are amongst clinicians and has enabled better communication with patients. The next step for the team is to demonstrate and quantify the value of PROMs in patients care and outcomes as part of value-based care delivery.