Patients are at the centre of what many of us do, but now we will have a greater understanding of how those in our care are faring with the introduction of Patient Reported Measures (PRMs).

The new program, which is sponsored by NSW Health, has landed at Northern Sydney with the hope the data collected via patients surveys will tell us more about their health and welfare as well as their health related outcomes and experiences of health services.

Patient Reported Measures Officer Davide de Sousa said PRMs will offer insights previous data types could not.

“While there is a long history of collecting health service delivery information across NSW, a lot of the measures of health evaluation are focused on outcomes from a clinical perspective,” he said.

“It is important to routinely ask for the patient’s perceptions of their own health and wellbeing at the point of care; there is good evidence to demonstrate that patients who are more engaged in their healthcare tend to choose less costly interventions.”

PRMs are divided into two categories; Patient Reported Outcomes Measures (PROMS) and Patient Reported Experience Measures (PREMS).

PROMs capture the patients’ perspectives about how illness or care impacts their health and wellbeing, while PREMs explore the patients’ perception of their experience with health care or services.

Davide said PRMs held promise in improving services for not just patients, but clinicians as well.

“These measures have been shown to support clinician decision-making and shared care planning,” he said.

“They can be used to raise clinicians’ awareness of patients’ concerns and target interventions that will improve patient outcomes of care.”

An example may be a patient indicating high levels of pain leaving the house in their survey. The clinician is then able to specifically address this concern in their consultation via referral to appropriate services.

The first service to go live with PRMs was the Osteoporosis Re-fracture Prevention Clinic (ORP) at Ryde Hospital on 16 March, with ORP at Royal North Shore and Hornsby Hospitals to follow in April and May respectively.