Medical Outcomes Trust Conference presents dramatic advances in patient-based outcomes assessment and potential...

At its fourth annual State-of-the-Art Health Outcomes Conference, November 2, 1998, the Medical Outcomes Trust (Boston) convened experts to review advances in outcomes assessment technology and potential applications in clinical trials, clinical practice, and accreditation.

"Future Directions in Health Status Assessment" identified what needs to happen next in order to put patient-defined outcomes into the databases used in medical decision making. Advances include a major recalibration of the SF-36 and SF-12 instruments from the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) offering new norm-based scoring and the new methodology known as Dynamic Health Assessment (DynHA), which uses a computerized interactive process to select questions to produce a briefer but more precise assessment.

A detailed needs assessment should be made and submitted to vendors to identify the best software for outcomes management in a particular organization.

Scientific and regulatory requirements differ between clinical trials and clinical practice, as seen in health status measurement of pain (migraine and osteoarthritis) and in antiretroviral therapies for patients with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) disease.

Similarities and distinctive challenges are identified in outcomes measurement of depression, low back pain, and congestive heart failure.

Efforts are ongoing in integrating outcomes measures into the accreditation process for physicians, health care organizations, and health care plans.

The Health Care Financing Administration is unrolling the first patient-based outcomes measure to assess the quality of care provided to the Medicare population in managed care organizations.