The NJR continues to collect and analyse Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) in order to build up a full picture of success for hip, knee, and shoulder joint replacement surgery.
Following NJRSC approval, the five-year PROMs follow up was started in April 2015. Having started in 2010, the NJR PROMs project had an original cohort of 50,000 patients. The five-year follow-up was divided into two elements: (1) a paper-based follow up to approximately 31,000 patients, and (2) an electronic, ‘ePROMs’ questionnaire to almost 11,000 patients. Over 12,000 patients had supplied email addresses as part of the three year follow up but, after data cleansing, many of them were found to be invalid. Those patients were contacted with a paper questionnaire.
Slightly less than 50% of patients responded to the email request to complete a secure online questionnaire, with many contacting the NJR Centre and requesting that a paper copy be sent to them. All patients who did not complete the online questionnaire were subsequently sent a paper copy.
All the data collected as part of the five-year follow-up will be linked to the existing NJR PROMs data ready for analysis. In 2016 the NJR Steering Committee will consider the extension of what is the largest project of its kind in the world to a follow up at seven years.
The NJR also completed a third year of shoulder PROMs, following up patients at six months after surgery. It is clear that collecting pre-operative Oxford Shoulder Scores remains a significant challenge for hospitals. The post-operative response rates have been considerably higher than pre-operative submission rates. Initial analyses are complete and in this year’s report (pages 161-167, Part Three).