As an HSS patient, you may be asked on occasion to complete a PROM questionnaire. These surveys help your healthcare team understand how you feel about your health goals, the care you receive, your well-being and your progress. You may be given a PROM in the waiting room, or you may receive a message asking you to complete an online PROM at home.
Most of these questionnaires take less than one minute to complete.
Patient-Reported Outcome Measures, or PROMs, are standardized, validated surveys. They are used to study how you feel about your health status in areas such as:
- pain
- mobility
- ability to perform daily tasks or specific activities
PROMs are usually collected at several points of time during your care at HSS. They are especially useful for:
- monitoring your progress
- helping you communicate with your healthcare team
- helping us improve the quality care for patients like you
Types of PROMS
There are two basic types:
- General health PROMs can be used to survey patients with any condition. They usually focus on general well-being, mental health and/or quality of life.
- Condition-specific PROMs usually concentrate on the symptoms of a particular disease. They may ask questions about your mobility, function or pain levels in certain areas of your body.
Why are PROMs important?
Help us help you. PROMs allow us to track your progress in an objective way. These surveys benefit you by:
- telling us what really matters to you as our patient
- helping you better understand your health
- allowing you to chart your recovery and progress over time
- giving you and your healthcare team reference points to discuss
- enabling you to positively affect your care
PROMs help HSS improve the level of your care by:
- capturing the underlying reason why you seek care – to improve your symptoms
- allowing us to analyze changes in your condition over time and measure your improvement
- giving us data we can use to make better decisions about your care and improve care for other patients
- encouraging you to be proactive in your care and communicate with your doctor
- measuring the performance of our doctors and surgeons to find ways to improve
- showing the effectiveness of the care you receive and how it impacts your well-being
- offering insight into the success of our treatments, care providers and HSS overall
- finding out whether you are satisfied with your care