Results Summary

PCORI funded the development of PCORnet®, the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network, to make research faster, easier, and less costly to conduct. PCORnet is made up of Partner Networks of healthcare systems, patients and communities, and health plans that harness the power of large amounts of health data.

PCORI supports brief, descriptive projects to assess the feasibility of conducting research using data gathered and shared securely through PCORnet. This project is one of several designed to test the network while addressing priorities identified by PCORI and its stakeholders.

What was the project about?

Patient-reported outcome measures, or PROMs, are surveys that ask patients how they feel and what activities they can do. PCORnet created a shared database system that includes data from patients’ electronic health records, or EHRs. In this project, the team helped three medical centers start collecting PROMs about heart failure. The team uploaded the data to PCORnet to test ways of using the data to improve patient care.

What were the results?

Could the project team help collect PROMs from patients? The team successfully collected PROMs from patients at each medical center and uploaded that data into the PCORnet Common Data Model (CDM).

How did patients and doctors feel about using the PROMs? Patients felt that PROMs helped them talk about their symptoms with their doctors. Doctors felt that PROMs helped them provide better care for patients.

How were patients who filled out PROMs different from patients who didn’t fill out these surveys? Patients who completed PROMs were younger, but they did not differ in gender, race, or ethnicity. Patients who didn’t complete PROMs were sicker and had more medical problems.

Which patients had more symptoms of heart failure? Patients with more symptoms of heart failure were more likely to be women and have other health problems, like obesity and depression.

Who was in the project?

The project team gathered PROM data from 1,054 patients from three medical centers in the United States between 2019 and 2020. The team also gathered data on patient characteristics from patients who did not complete PROMs during the same time.

What did the project team do?

First, the project team helped the three medical centers collect PROM data from patients using patients’ EHRs. The team then uploaded the data to PCORnet. The team also interviewed 10 patients with heart failure and 8 doctors at the medical centers to learn how they felt about using PROMs. Using the data, the team looked at differences between patients who filled out PROMs and those who didn’t. The team also looked at the characteristics of patients who had more symptoms of heart failure.

What were the limits of the project?

The project team didn’t collect as much data as they hoped to due to the short timeframe of the project. The results may differ if the team had data from more patients.

More data will be available as patients fill out PROMs over time for future projects to use.

How can people use the results?

Researchers can use the results when planning studies that collect and use PCORnet data.

Project Information

Justin Bachmann, MD, MPH
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
$719,628
Implementation of Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement in Routine Clinical Practice for Heart Failure Patients in PCORnet (Descriptive Analytics)

Key Dates

December 2018
January 2021
2018
2021

Tags

Has Results
State State The state where the project originates, or where the primary institution or organization is located. View Glossary
Last updated: March 4, 2022