Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Nov;17(6):1278-1285.
doi: 10.1177/15589447211043214. Epub 2021 Sep 14.

Automated Reporting of Patient Outcomes in Hand Surgery: A Pilot Study

Orrin I Franko  1 , Daniel A London  2   3 , Thomas R Kiefhaber  4 , Peter J Stern  3   4
Affiliations

Automated Reporting of Patient Outcomes in Hand Surgery: A Pilot Study

Orrin I Franko et al. Hand (N Y). 2022 Nov.

Abstract

Background: Obtaining patient-reported outcomes (PROs) is becoming a standard component of patient care. For nonacademic practices, this can be challenging. From this perspective, we designed a nearly autonomous patient outcomes reporting system. We then conducted a prospective, cohort pilot study to assess the efficacy of the system.

Methods: We created an automated system to gather PROs. All operative patients for 4 surgeons in an upper-extremity private practice were asked to participate. These patients completed the Quick Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder, and Hand (QuickDASH) questionnaires preoperatively and received follow-up e-mails requesting patients to complete additional QuickDASH questionnaires at 3, 6, and 12 weeks postoperatively and to complete a 13-week postoperative satisfaction survey. Response rates and satisfaction levels are reported with descriptive statistics.

Results: Sixty-two percent of participants completed the 3-week assessment, 55% completed the 6-week assessment, and 43% completed the 12-week assessment. Overall, 35% of patients completed all questionnaires, and 73% completed at least 1 postoperative assessment. The collection of follow-up questionnaires required no additional time from the clinical staff, surgeon, or a research associate.

Conclusions: Automated e-mail assessments can collect reliable clinical data, with minimal surgeon or staff intervention required to administer and collect data, minimizing the financial cost. For nonacademic practices, without access to additional research resources, such a system is feasible. Further improvements in communication with patients could increase response rates.

Keywords: QuickDASH; automated data collection; outcomes research; patient-reported outcomes.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: O.I.F. created and owns the website SurgiSurvey.com which was used in this study. The rest of the authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The percentage of participants who completed the QuickDASH assessment stratified by the total number of assessments that participants completed. Note. QuickDASH = Quick Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder, and Hand.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Basch E, Goldfarb S. Electronic patient-reported outcomes for collecting sensitive information from patients. J Support Oncol. 2009;7(3):98-99. - PubMed
    1. Dupont A, Wheeler J, Herndon JE, 2nd, et al.. Use of tablet personal computers for sensitive patient-reported information. J Support Oncol. 2009;7(3):91-97. - PubMed
    1. Smith SK, Rowe K, Abernethy AP. Use of an electronic patient-reported outcome measurement system to improve distress management in oncology. Palliat Support Care. 2014;12(1):69-73. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zbrozek A, Hebert J, Gogates G, et al.. Validation of electronic systems to collect patient-reported outcome (PRO) data-recommendations for clinical trial teams: report of the ISPOR ePRO systems validation good research practices task force. Value Health. 2013;16(4):480-489. - PubMed
    1. Epstein AM. Pay for performance at the tipping point. N Engl J Med. 2007;356(5):515-517. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources