PROMs

Outcomes, in the patient's own words.

Medical tests and clinical outcomes can show whether a treatment or procedure was successful. However, only patients can tell us how their health and quality of life have changed after receiving care.

Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) capture this information directly from patients. By asking them about their symptoms, daily functioning and overall well-being, PROMs help healthcare teams better understand the impact of treatment from the patient's perspective.

What Are PROMs?

PROMs are a set of questions posed to patients about their health and quality of life before and after treatment.

For example, after knee surgery, patients may be asked whether they can:

• Walk comfortably and move around independently
• Take public transport
• Return to work, hobbies or other daily activities
• Do the things that matter most to them

These responses help healthcare teams understand whether treatment has made a meaningful difference in patients' lives.

Why PROMs Matter

PROMs complement clinical measures by adding the patient's voice to the assessment of care. Together, they provide a more complete picture of treatment outcomes and help healthcare teams improve care in ways that matter most to patients.

Scale (as of Aug 26)

Built on global standards, tailored for Singapore

Our vision is to embed Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) into routine clinical care, so that patients’ experiences and priorities are taken into account when making healthcare decisions.

We use internationally recognised PROMs wherever possible. This allows us to learn from global best practices and compare outcomes across different healthcare systems worldwide.

To ensure these measures are appropriate for Singapore’s population, we validate and adapt them within the local context. This helps us capture the values, needs and priorities of our patients accurately, ensuring PROMs remain relevant, reliable and meaningful in guiding patient-centred care.

A Living Repository for Singapore

To support the use of PROMs, SingHealth has developed Singapore’s first comprehensive repository of PROMs that have been validated for local populations across a range of health conditions.

The repository is designed to help clinicians, researchers, and health administrators identify which measures have been validated for Singapore populations. This is a living resource, continually updated as new evidence and validated measures become available, ensuring that it remains relevant and useful for the healthcare community.

The team is also inviting submissions from the community — if you have validated a PROM in Singapore, you are encouraged to contribute your entry to keep this living resource current and comprehensive. Please email us at proms@singhealth.com.sg to contribute.

Making it Easier for Patients to Share Feedback

Lengthy questionnaires can be time-consuming and tiring for patients. To make the process simpler, SingHealth uses computer adaptive testing (CAT) — a method that dynamically tailors the questions asked based on a patient's previous answers. Instead of answering every question in a long survey, patients are only asked the questions that are most relevant to them.

This creates a shorter and more personalised experience while still providing healthcare teams with accurate and meaningful information. The result is better data, collected with less effort for patients. 

PROMise Program 

Fewer appointments and more remote monitoring for stable Axial Spondyloarthritis patients.

Using an automated monitoring system where PROMs and blood test results are analysed to categorise patients according to severity, appointments are rescheduled to a later date for stable patients whose results fall within acceptable thresholds.