Who Cares About What Patients Think?
The FDA, Insurance Payers, Researchers...
Maybe You Should Too
W
hile patient-reported outcomes
(PROs) are nothing new in the
field of medicine, they may now be
newly appreciated.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) defines a PRO as “a measurement based
on a report that comes from the patient (i.e.,
study subject) about the status of a patient’s
health condition without amendment or interpretation of the patient’s report by a clinician or
anyone else.” In other words, a PRO is how the
patient feels, and how well or poorly a patient
is responding to treatment, according to the
patient.
However, according to Amy P. Abernethy,
MD, PhD, a medical oncologist and palliative
medicine specialist at Duke University Health
System, that type of information, which she
more broadly referred to as “patient-generated
health data,” has been reported by patients
at the beginning of every doctor’s visit for
centuries.
“For doctors, patient-reported data are the
beginning of every story; it is the history of the
patient’s present illness,” Dr. Abernethy told
ASH