SAM-PLER

Introduction

Quality in Acute Medicine is measured through a suite of metrics. Patients’ views are not commonly reported. While there are comprehensive systems to measure Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMS) and Patient Reported Experience Measures (PREMS) to date none have been used to review Acute Medicine services in the United Kingdom. Dutch colleagues have created and validated a PREMS tool. This has not been used in the UK previously, but a validated translation was published with the original publication. Disease or setting specific PREMS tools are usually used in conjunction with a generic tool such as the EQ-5D.

The Society for Acute Medicine’s Quality Improvement Committee has previously reviewed the literature on patient reported outcomes and experience in order to drive evidenced based improvement at scale. The Friends and family test has previously been used as part of the Society for Acute Medicine’s Benchmarking Audit (SAMBA): patients experience differed by age group was granularity of data was low.

The committee established a Quality Improvement Collaborative of practicing clinicians in Acute Medicine with the aim of establishing the feasibility of reporting of PREMS in Acute Medicine.