Growing Focus on Patients' Health Assessment

It may seem like a no-brainer to include patients’ assessments of their physical and mental conditions and quality of life into medical care, but such patient-generated data has traditionally been confined to research rather than clinical settings. Clinicians have typically focused more on physical exams, medical tests and biological measures to guide patient care.

However, as patient-centered medical care has taken hold in recent years, there’s been a growing interest in finding ways to use outcomes reported by individuals to help guide care.