Patient-reported outcomes for ambulatory surgery.

Area of Science:

• Ambulatory surgery
• Perioperative medicine
• Patient-reported outcomes

Background:

• Ambulatory surgical care is increasing due to advances in surgical and anesthetic techniques.
• Patient-reported outcomes (PROMs) are vital for detecting minor adverse events in ambulatory settings, which traditional endpoints like mortality may miss.
• Variability in outcome reporting hinders research and provider benchmarking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To highlight the significance of validated tools for measuring patient-reported outcomes in ambulatory surgery.
• To discuss the application of these tools in evaluating ambulatory care quality.

Main Methods:

• Review of recommendations from the standardized endpoints in perioperative medicine initiative.
• Emphasis on combining generic and disease-specific PROMs for comprehensive outcome assessment.
• Exploration of technological advancements, including digital integration and remote follow-up via web-based or telephone applications.

Main Results:

• Validated PROMs enable internal and external quality comparisons for ambulatory surgery.
• PROMs facilitate the identification of subtle adverse events.
• Technological integration, such as digital data collection and remote monitoring, optimizes outcome measurement.

Conclusions:

• Validated patient-reported outcome measures are essential for quality improvement in perioperative ambulatory surgical care.
• Combining PROMs with objective measures and patient satisfaction data provides a holistic view of care quality.
• Leveraging technology can streamline data collection and remote patient follow-up.