Listening to the Patients: Why Their Voice Matters in Shaping Healthcare
Learn how Bharosa.life integrates PROMs to enhance medical care and to ensure the quality of healthcare is directly influenced by patient experiences.
In recent years, the healthcare sector has seen a strategic shift towards patient-centred care. The focus is now on leveraging patient experiences to improve treatment plans using Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs).
PROMs As Healthcare Quality Indicators
Patient-reported outcome measures (PROM) are relatively new in clinical medicine. Traditionally, the success of a medical procedure is measured by several objective parameters. For example, the number of patients who have an infection after an operation is an indicator of poor care. However, clinicians collect and record these parameters. Healthcare professionals often advertise success rates of operations and procedures. However, they are rating themselves and this needs to engender more confidence and transparency.
The advent of PROMS promises to change the status quo.
PROMS are specific outcomes (pain, range of movement of a joint etc) that are reported by patients. These are standardised the world over, making them reliable and be used as a tool to rate health care performance. In addition, a PROM may give insight into how their own healthcare journey is progressing following a procedure. As an example, the ability of a patient to walk 100 meters pain-free is something patients should achieve at a particular time after an operation. This measure is reported by the patient and can be used as a benchmark to judge the success of an operation. PROMS are patient-driven and objective.
For a healthcare professional, getting an unbiased review directly from the patient through PROMs will enable outcome tracking over time and offer insights into the success of the treatments. PROMs also assist in fostering better communication between patients and doctors to identify issues that need improvement.
PROMs in the Indian Healthcare System
If Indian healthcare is to transition into a patient-centred care model, the integration of PROM data with the system is crucial. However, the adoption of PROMs is still in its early stages in India.
Several factors are responsible for the limited presence of PROMs in the Indian healthcare system:
1. Limited Awareness about PROMs
Most patients and healthcare professionals are unaware of what PROMs are and how they might be used to enhance the quality of care. This is largely due to insufficient training and a lack of awareness programs.
2. Structure of the Healthcare System
Indian healthcare is a mix of both private and public providers; implementing PROMs in such a fragmented system can be challenging. Additionally, without clear guidelines and training on effectively analysing and integrating PROM data into quality improvement initiatives, healthcare professionals might find the process burdensome. Finally, private health care may not prioritise transparency in performance over profit.
How Does Bharosa.life Help Overcome this Challenge?
Online review sites are an effective medium for incorporating PROMs to create access to healthcare information. However, traditional online review sites often lack the structure and verification needed for reliable patient insights.
This, along with the lack of standardised PROMs can make it difficult to find trustworthy information about doctors and treatments on traditional online review sites.
This is where Bharosa.life steps in. Bharosa.life tackles this challenge by pioneering the use of verified PROMs within a secure platform for patient reviews in India. Here's how it stands out:
PROMS
Bharosa.life will introduce the option of using PROMS as patient tool to measure performance and give patient health care insights after procedures. PROMS are free from a doctor's view or bias regarding clinical progress. It is patients speaking about their healthcare journey in a measurable and comparable way.
Final Thoughts
Bharosa.life helps patients voice their opinions without any fear and evaluates the clinician on multiple variables.
PROMS are relatively new. They have the potential to change how health care performance is measured objectively and reliably - with a key difference. It is the patient who provides detailed, objective and comparable insights and not the doctors.
It also helps medical professionals to improve the quality of healthcare services based on authentic patient experiences. Making informed health choices just got better with Bharosa.life; visit the platform to find the best medical care today!
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