Patient-Reported Outcome Measures and Patient Activation: What Are Their Roles in Orthopedic Trauma?

The rise of patient-reported outcome (PRO) measurement across medicine has been swift and now extends to the world of orthopedic trauma. However, PRO measures (PROMs) applied to trauma patients pose special considerations; measuring "episodes of care" is less straightforward, injuries are heterogeneous in their severity, and the patient's initial visit is "postinjury." Obtaining baseline scores and assessing the impact of a traumatic event on mental health are key considerations. Currently, few, if any, trauma registries include PROs; though general and condition-specific PROMs plus the patient empowerment measure of Patient Activation represent meaningful inputs for the clinical decision-making process. To be useful in trauma care, PROMs should be psychometrically sound and validated, be used for capturing function, screen for mental state and substance use, and give the clinician a sense of the patient's "activation" (engagement in their own health). Although the implementation of routine PRO collection can seem daunting, clinicians can use a multitude of electronic resources to access validated measures and simplify the implementation process. Computer-adaptive testing has evolved to help minimize patient burden, and PROM collection must maximize efficiency. Once established as part of your practice, PROs become an important tool to track recovery, identify mental health issues, engage in the prevention of future injury, and enable care of the whole patient.