State-of-the-art Applications of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures in Spinal Care

Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) assign objective measures to patient's subjective experiences of health, pain, disability, function, and quality of life. PROMs can be useful for providers in shared decision making, outcome assessment, and indicating patients for surgery. In this article, we provide an overview of the legacy PROMs used in spinal care, recent advancements in patient-reported outcomes, and future directions in PROMs. Recent advances in patient-reported outcome assessments have included standardization of measurement tools, integration of data collection into workflow, and applications of outcome measures in predictive models and decision-making tools. Continual appraisal of instruments and incorporation into artificial intelligence and machine learning analytics will continue to augment the delivery of high-value spinal care.