MONDAY, May 13, 2019 (HealthDay News) — A standardized set of outcome measures, published online May 9 in JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery, has been designed to evaluate the quality of care provided to pediatric patients with facial palsy.
Daniel P. Butler, M.D., from the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, and colleagues developed a standardized outcome measurement set for pediatric patients with facial palsy through a working group of 21 health care experts and patient representatives as well as external reviewers. Eighty-three papers were included for qualitative evaluation.
The working group designed a standard set of outcome measurements to allow for recording of outcomes after all forms of surgical and nonsurgical facial palsy treatments among pediatric patients. Using the standard set, unilateral or bilateral, congenital or acquired, permanent or temporary, and single-territory or multiterritory facial palsy can be evaluated. Functional, appearance, psychosocial, and administrative outcomes were included. Clinical and psychometric outcome measurement tools were established, as were time points for measuring patient outcomes. The standard set was independently reviewed 86 times. Overall, 85 percent of patients and patient representatives and 96 percent of health care professionals agreed that the set would capture the outcomes that matter most to pediatric patients with facial palsy.
“This set may help allow the benchmarking of clinicians, comparison of treatment pathways, and the introduction of value-based reimbursement strategies within the field of pediatric facial palsy,” the authors write.
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