Progress for the Patient Reported Measures program

New developments across the Patient Reported Measures Program will help drive improvements in care and health outcomes for people in NSW.

The Patient Reported Measures (PRMs) Program enables patients to provide direct, timely feedback about their health-related experiences and outcomes. This feedback helps drive improvements in care and outcomes across the NSW health system.

While feedback from patients has been collected for some time (mostly for research, input into clinical quality registries and/or for quality improvement), the statewide Patient-reported Measures (PRMs) Program builds on this by using patient feedback across all levels of the health system:

1. At the point of care (to add value to clinicians and their patients)
2. At the health service level
3. At the health system level

Development of the PRMs Program has progressed significantly this year. Some of the key program activities and milestones include the following:

• The ACI, eHealth NSW and the Ministry of Health are working collaboratively on progressing the IT platform to support the implementation of PRMs, named HOPE (Health Outcomes and Patient Experience). The functional and technical requirements for HOPE have been identified through extensive consultation, design and agreement with clinicians, consumers and other key stakeholders to ensure it is fit-for-purpose. It is expected that HOPE will be built by December 2020; with implementation to sites and services expected early February 2021.
• The ACI PRMs team continues to work with locally employed PRMs leads to build readiness for the use of PRMs across the NSW health system. The team have been presenting fortnightly demonstrations to PRMs leads in local health districts (LHDs) and specialty health networks (SHNs), and to key end users. In August, more than 50 clinicians and program leads participated in the first user acceptance and usability testing week. The second round had more than 80 participants and included consumers. The last round of user acceptance testing will commence in November.
• The ACI worked with Train IT Medical to develop resources and a train-the-trainer package to support primary care involvement in system-wide capability for PRMs.
• The NSW PRMs program is working with telehealth managers and leads to refine a subset of questions already in use across the system for telehealth models during COVID-19.
• The Aboriginal Health Working Group for PRMs has been convened, with Dr Mark Lock, First Nations Researcher, appointed the Aboriginal Co-Chair. The group has commissioned an Aboriginal artwork for use in key PRMs engagement activities with Aboriginal communities across NSW. A workshop with more than 200 participants will be held in November to co-design the approach to implementation and evaluation.

Access useful resources and get involved

The ACI PRMs team has developed a series of information and education resources for health professionals and consumers. A newsletter provides regular updates and a Community Interest Group has been established to provide collaboration and networking opportunities, and to share learning and support.