Standardized Usage of Electronic Patient-Reported Outcome Measurements is Time-Efficient and Feasible.

Abstract

(1) Background: Digitization is of the utmost importance in improving the transfer of medical data. In order to emphasize the need for the greater implementation of digital solutions, we compared analog PROMs (aPROMs) to electronic PROMs (ePROMs) to emphasize the time benefits for clinical everyday life. (2) Methods: This prospective, observational study compared the evaluation of SF-36 in patients between 18 and 80 years old with musculoskeletal pathologies. We performed an age-independent and age-dependent analysis. (3) Results: After the import of aPROMs data, ePROMs took significantly less time (11.97 ± 3.00 min vs. 9.41 ± 3.12 min, p = 0.002, d = 0.797). There were no significant differences associated with age for aPROMs (7.23 ± 2.57 min vs. 8.38 ± 2.71 min, p = 0.061, d = -0.607) or ePROMs (8.72 ± 2.19 min vs. 10.09 ± 3.80 min, p = 0.130, d = -0.436), respectively. (4) Conclusions: This study indicates that ePROMs are a time-feasible method for collecting data to guide patient-personalized treatment approaches.