Using Patient Reported Outcomes Measures to Promote Integrated Care

INTRODUCTION: Patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) have been introduced as standardised outcomes, but have not been implemented widely for disease targeted pathways of care, nor for geriatric patients who prefer functional performance and quality of life. DISCUSSION: We describe innovative multipurpose implementation of PROMs as evidenced by two best practices of PROMs application in geriatric and physiotherapy practice. We show that PROMs can show meaningful outcomes in older subjects’ patient journeys, which can at the same time serve individuals and groups of both patients and professionals. KEY LESSON: PROMs can deliver generic outcomes relevant for older patients, may improve patient-physician relationship, quality of care and prediction of future outcomes in geriatric care, if they are valid, reliable and responsive, but still short and simple. A precondition to make the hard tip from research to practice is that PROMs are carefully positioned in the clinical encounters and in electronic health records.