The challenges and opportunities of using patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) in clinical practice

From the standpoint of the healthcare provider, multiple contributors to a patients' clinical presentation, difficulty with translating research trials into one's practice, conflicting clinical practice guidelines, and an ever-increasing volume of literature compounds the difficulty for clinicians to determine best care, which addresses the biological, psychological and sociological health domains. If clinicians are adopting a patient centred model of care – routine use of validated patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) which elicit patients' views of their symptoms, their functional status, their health-related quality of life (HRQoL), all of which encompass several domains – are paramount. This commentary advocates for the use of PROMs on a wider scale than is currently described in the literature. Background information on PROMs is provided along with suggesting important questions to ask as a clinician when implementing these in practice. The current commentary addresses these questions and describes the implementation of PROMs using published case studies that describe osteopathy management for a variety of conditions.