PATIENT-REPORTED OUTCOME MEASURE FOR EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT (PROM-ED)

Figure 1

How do we learn from practice to improve ED care?

Ontarians make approximately 6 million visits to the emergency department (ED) every year, with 90% of them going home after their care.

We currently have  limited information on the result of the care that ED patients receive. This is information that could greatly affect our ability to improve ED care.

Current ED patient questionnaires focus on the patient experience (PREM) rather than patient outcomes post-discharge.

Patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) have long been important to measure value of care in clinical trials and are now allowing patients to report outcomes from routine health care in many fields including joint disease, mental health and cancer care.

PROM-ED is the first PROM for patients discharged after ED (with the exception of patients presenting primarily for issues of mental health or substance use).

We conducted a qualitative study involving ED patients and various experts to develop a conceptual model which defined the core outcome domains of PROM-ED. (Vaillancourt et al. Annals of Emergency Medicine. 2017)

Based on these outcomes, we embarked on a multi-phase program involving hundreds of patients, to develop and validate PROM-ED 1.0, a questionnaire enabling the systematic collection of patient reported outcomes after ED care (Figure 1).

We are now working in close partnership to test the use of PROM-ED in different care settings and research uses in Canada and the United States.