Oct 2020

International Experts Launch a Foundational Set of Standards to Measure COVID-19 Health Globally

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The International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (iCHOM) has released an international COVID-19 Standard Set (C19-SS) of health outcomes.   This was developed at a record setting pace, with our own Dr. Evan Kwong on the international working group panel!

This is an important step towards international harmony on collection of outcomes that matter to patients and Value Based Health Care.

Read the iCHOM news release here (PDF download)>

Standard set flyer (PDF)

Reference guide (PDF)

Website

Highlights

  • A recommended set of standards have been finalized to track the outcomes that matter most to patients with COVID-19 and use the data to inform quality improvement across services worldwide.
  • It is hoped this outcome set will represent the most important end results of care for patients with COVID-19 and can be influenced by the care process.
  • It is important to evaluate the outcomes among clinical settings all over the world, to recognize the best practices available.
  • It will be invaluable to learn from implementation pilots that may emerge across the globe and inform future iterations of this global set of standards.
  • Couples the latest scientific knowledge from healthcare professionals and personal input from patients, ensuring the outcomes that matter most to them were placed as the central focus.

The COVID-19 Standard Set (C19-SS)

  • A minimum core set of standards, comprised of Patient and Clinician – Reported Outcome
    Measures recommended to be collected across primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare settings.
  • Designed to track the recovery of patients suffering from COVID-19 over a three-month period following their admission.
  • Can be extended for a further three months at the discretion of the physician for patients who are yet to fully recover.
  • Measures 13 outcomes under the biopsychosocial framework for comprehensive outcomes measurement.
  • The overarching domains are Social Functioning, Mental Functioning, Functional Status and Quality of Life, Symptoms, and Clinical Outcomes.
  • To help ensure C-19SS relevance across contexts,  a series of 8 case-mix, risk adjustment factors are recommended, to be collected along with the outcomes measured. These cover demographic, clinical and treatment-related factors to ensure that patient populations can be compared between settings.
  • Available in several languages for increased adoption across countries.

An open-source Reference Guide has also been created, outlining recommendations for administering the set, time points, and a data dictionary for organizations to begin implementation.

For more information on the C19-SS, the standard set flyer can be downloaded here and the reference guide here.

ICHOM Standard Sets are standardized outcomes, measurement tools and time points and risk adjustment factors for a given condition, and that focus on what matters most to the patient. Visit www.ichom.org for more details.