Incentives and obstacles to the routine use of outcomes measures by clinicians

Unless clinicians are forced by funds providers to use outcomes measures, clinicians will choose to use them only if the value they provide is commensurate with the administration time required. This study was designed to determine which aspects of outcomes measures encouraged clinicians to use them and which aspects discouraged clinicians from using them.

Clinicians who had used one or more outcomes measures were surveyed using a reasonably open-ended survey. Comments were analyzed by categorising them and counting the number of comments within each category.

Aspects that were most valued included determining the clients' goals and expectations at the outset of the rehabilitation program, as well as measures of improvement and of residual hearing difficulties at the end of the program. Aspects that most discouraged the use of outcomes measures included collection or recording of information that the clinician would prefer to collect and record in other ways, and an excessive amount of time to administer.

To maximize the adoption of outcomes measures by clinicians, the tools should provide information in addition to a simple quantification of benefit. For example, this might comprise information about clients' initial goals and/or expectations.