Todate, PROs have primaily been used in
clinical trials to establish the effectiveness
of a new medical treatment. There are
ample data that provide many approaches to
interpret the population based PRO data
summaries, but these are still too complicated
for many clinicians to use in any practical
way. The practicing medical community needs measures of relevant outcomes that
are simple to collect, reported in a way they can understand and, most importantly,
are meaningful in guiding how they should manage individual patients.
Physicians recognize
that different patients have their own unique
preferences that need to be considered in
choosing a recommended course of treatment.
Choosing a treatment based upon a mean PRO
score or even a domain score from a
clinical trial is almost useless.
Meaningful for Physicians and Care Givers
- Easy to collect the
data
- Simple summaries that are easy
to understand
- Relevant for both physicians
and care givers
- Useful in setting goals of
treatment with patients
- Provides information to guide
treatment
- Useful measures of achiement of
goals of treatment