A new study conducted by the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City validated two new shortened questionnaires that will significantly reduce the time it takes to collect patient-reported outcome data for hip and knee replacement surgeries, according to the HSS Newsroom.
The Hip disability and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score JR., a six-question hip survey, and the Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score JR., a seven-question knee survey, were developed by a multidisciplinary team from Hospital for Special Surgery as abbreviated versions of the existing HOOS and KOOS surveys, which contain 40 and 42 questions, respectively.
Here are five points:
1. Beginning in April, Medicare will incentivize hospitals participating in the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement model, an initiative aiming to support higher quality, more efficient care for patients undergoing hip and knee replacements, to voluntarily submit patient-reported outcome data.
2. The new questionnaires were designed to help orthopedic surgeons better identify optimal surgery candidates, improve rehabilitation services and more effectively evaluate implant devices.
3. The survey results will be available to consumers on healthcare.gov, marking the first time treatment-specific, patient-reported outcomes data will be publicly available.
4. The surveys were first validated at HSS. For external validation, the Agency for Healthcare research and Quality-funded FORCE-TJR registry confirmed the validity of the surveys for the U.S. population and stated they performed very well in the FORCE-TJR registry population.
5. HSS conducts 9,000 joint replacements annually and performs more Medicare joint replacements than any other hospital in the United States.