Patient-Reported Outcomes: Best Practices on Selection and Data Collection - Final Technical Report 

Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are increasingly being used for a variety of healthcare-related activities, including care provision, performance measurement, and clinical, health services, and comparative effectiveness research. However, many barriers still exist related to the adoption of PROs and patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), such as a lack of resources and incentives to support the selection, implementation, interpretation, and use of PROs and PROMs in ways that ensure high data quality while being mindful of burden and clinical workflow. These barriers ultimately affect the development, endorsement, and implementation of patient-reported outcome performance measures (PRO-PMs). In 2019, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) contracted with NQF to convene a Technical Expert Panel (TEP) comprised of 25 individuals to identify best practices to address challenges in PRO selection and data collection and ensure PRO data quality. The TEP built on previous work by establishing best practices for the selection of PROs and selection and implementation of PROMs, primarily in the context of care management and planning. This report offers guidance to clinicians and organizations about how to address stakeholder buy-in and engagement, data collection burden, workflow, interpretability of scores, integration into electronic health records (EHRs), return on investment, patient and physician incentives, and other considerations. Using three clinical scenarios (burns and trauma, heart failure, and joint replacement), the report also examines key elements of PROMs and presents use cases for different perspectives involved in the selection process. The report concludes with encouragement for increased utilization of PROs and PROMs and a brief look into future opportunities.