How We Use Patient-Reported Outcome Measures to Improve Your Care

Patient-Reported outcome measures (PROMs) are the tools we use to better care for our patients at Henry Ford. They can reveal how your overall health has changed because of our treatments. These measures give your doctors insight into how well and to what extent our treatment improved your health and quality of life.

PROMs are essentially reviews about your health and how well the recommended therapies have helped you. Your doctor uses this feedback to understand your health needs and tailor their care to help you feel better We are one of the only health care systems in the region that focuses our care on the collection of these important tools. 

How Do We Collect PROMs?

PROMs are collected through questionnaires that are filled out by our patients before and after surgical and nonsurgical treatments. They can be filled out online before your visit through your Henry Ford MyChart account, and/or at the beginning of your visit(s) with your physician, where you will be offered a tablet to help you fill it out.

You will be asked to quantify your pain and physical function into numbers (i.e. on a scale of 1 to 10), so that the results can be used to help us understand your experience, as well as compare it with other patients’ experiences.

Questions you may be asked on a PROMs survey include:

• How much pain you’re experience on a daily basis
• How well your body’s function has returned or what physical limitations you may have
• How satisfied you are with your overall healthcare experience
• How you assess your current quality of life and general health

These questions can also be specific to illness or specialty. Disease-specific PROMs focus on individual patient conditions such as knee osteoarthritis, rotator cuff tear, or even an ACL or meniscus injury.