An acute knee injury: tracking a two-year recovery online

Current government policy aims to deliver high quality healthcare by recording accurate data at the point of giving care, storing it efficiently and displaying it in a format, which is easily interpreted by healthcare professionals and patients. Few published reports describe the benefits of collecting and reporting such data from the point of view of the patient. We report the case of a 62-year-old lorry driver who used a web-based system to track patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) following an acute knee injury to full recovery over a 24-month period. The system reports clinical outcome scores in real-time to the patient and their medical team, clearly illustrating and enhancing recovery from injury. This case reveals how local software meets the needs of the individual patient linking and integrating such local systems must be the future focus of eHealth within the NHS to release the benefits presented by the information revolution.