Patient-related outcome measures in medical education research

The use of patient-related outcomes in medical education research has gained traction over the past 25 years, yet it remains underutilized. In 2001, less than 7% of medical education publications included patient outcomes, despite the goal being the production of high-quality healthcare providers. This commentary discusses common sources of patient outcome data, their applications, and challenges. Administrative databases and Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) are key sources of data, with PROMs capturing patients' direct reports of their health status. PROMs are particularly useful when administrative data are scarce, such as in Europe. They can be employed to assess a variety of educational impacts, including the effect of physician experience on patient satisfaction and outcomes, as well as error rates in diagnosis and treatment. Challenges in using such data include difficulty identifying appropriate outcomes and attribution of results to individual providers given patient-specific factors and the growing importance of team-based care. Consequently, large numbers of patients are needed to produce meaningful results. Despite these challenges, PROMs hold promise for improving medical education by focusing on what is most important - outcomes for patients.