Montreal Accord on Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs) use series – Paper 8: patient-reported outcomes in electronic health records can inform clinical and policy decisions

Background Given that the goal of health care systems is to improve and maintain the health of the populations they serve, the indicators of performance must include outcomes that are meaningful to patients. The growth of health technologies provides an unprecedented opportunity to integrate the patient voice into clinical care by linking electronic health records (EHRs) to patient-reported outcome (PRO) data collection. However, PRO data must be relevant, meaningful, and actionable for those who will have to invest the time and effort to collect it. Objective In this study, we highlight opportunities to integrate PRO data collection into EHRs. We consider how stakeholder perspectives should influence the selection of PROs and ways to enhance engagement in and commitment to PRO implementation. We propose a research and policy agenda to address unanswered questions and facilitate the widespread adoption of PRO data collection into EHRs. Discussion Building a learning health care system that gathers PRO data in ways that can inform individual patient care, quality improvement, and comparative effectiveness research has the potential to accelerate the application of new evidence and knowledge to patient care.