Balancing adaptability and standardisation: insights from 27 routinely implemented ICHOM standard sets.

BACKGROUND: Healthcare systems around the world experience increasing pressure to control future growth of healthcare expenditures. Among other initiatives, quality and value-based benchmarking has become an important field to inform clinical evaluation and reimbursement questions. The International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM) has become one of the driving forces to translate scientific evidence into standardized assessments that are routinely applicable in day-to-day care settings. These aim to provide a benchmarking tool that allows the comparison and competition of health care delivery on the basis of value-based health care principles. METHODS: This work focuses on the consolidation of the ICHOM methodology and presents insights from 27 routinely implemented Standard Sets. The analysis is based on a literature review of the ICHOM literature repository, a process document review and key informant interviews with ICHOM's outcomes research and development team. RESULTS: Key findings are that the scope of ICHOM Standard Sets shifted from a more static focus on burden of disease and poorly standardized care pathways to a more dynamic approach that also takes into account questions about the setting of care, feasibility of implementing a benchmarking tool and compatibility of different Standard Sets. Although certain overlaps exist with other initiatives in the field of patient reported outcomes (PRO), their scopes differ significantly and they hence rather complement each other. ICHOM pursues a pragmatic approach to enable the benchmarking and the analysis of healthcare delivery following the principles of value-based healthcare. CONCLUSION: The ICHOM Standard Sets complement other initiatives in the field of patient-reported outcomes (PRO) and functional reporting by placing a particular focus on healthcare delivery, while other initiatives primarily focus on evaluation of academic endpoints. Although ICHOM promotes a pragmatic approach towards developing and devising its Standard Sets, the definition of standardized decision making processes emerged as one of the key challenges. Furthermore, the consolidation of core metrics across number of disease areas to enable the parallel implementation of different Standard Sets in the same care setting is an important goal that will enable the widespread implementation of patient-reported outcome measures (PROM).

Developing an International Standard Set of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures for Psychotic Disorders.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this project was to develop a set of patient-reported outcome measures for adolescents and adults who meet criteria for a psychotic disorder. METHODS: A research team and an international consensus working group, including service users, clinicians, and researchers, worked together in an iterative process by using a modified Delphi consensus technique that included videoconferencing calls, online surveys, and focus groups. The research team conducted systematic literature searches to identify outcomes, outcome measures, and risk adjustment factors. After identifying outcomes important to service users, the consensus working group selected outcome measures, risk adjustment factors, and the final set of outcome measures. International stakeholder groups consisting of >100 professionals and service users reviewed and commented on the final set. RESULTS: The consensus working group identified four outcome domains: symptoms, recovery, functioning, and treatment. The domains encompassed 14 outcomes of importance to service users. The research team identified 131 measures from the literature. The consensus working group selected nine measures in an outcome set that takes approximately 35 minutes to complete. CONCLUSIONS: A set of patient-reported outcome measures for use in routine clinical practice was identified. The set is free to service users, is available in at least two languages, and reflects outcomes important to users. Clinicians can use the set to improve clinical decision making, and administrators and researchers can use it to learn from comparing program outcomes.