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Focusing on short-term outcomes in health care does not assist in creating a healthier population nor does it support appropriate allocation of financial resources. However, focusing on measuring, documenting, and improving function is an essential next step toward improving the health and lives of patients.
To discuss and promote the use of functional patient-reported outcomes measures (fPROMs) in all medical practice settings, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and the American Psychological Association in collaboration with the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) convened a special symposium on June 28, 2019. The
Recommendations from the 2019 Symposium on Including Functional Status Measurement in Standard Patient Care have now been published in the August issue of the
Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
The Symposium brought together a panel of key stakeholders, including medical/health specialty societies, insurers, employers, and electronic health record (EHR) developers. The consensus of the participants was that a consistent general patient-reported functional tool could be useful, but may not be appropriate for use in every type of patient encounter. A set of criteria that a general functional status tool should meet are included in the document. Pathways to promote the implementation of fPROMS into all medical practice settings were also recommended by the Panel.
The paper is free access and available online on ACOEM's website.