Worcester, MA – FORCE-TJR (the first U.S. total joint replacement (TJR) registry to collect and use patient-reported outcome measures and provide risk-adjusted national norms to guide quality monitoring in TJR) has been named one of three national project awardees by AcademyHealth Electronic Data Methods (EDM) Forum.
This year’s awards are designed to stimulate creative strategies for using big health data in ways that will directly improve health care for patients and populations. FORCE-TJR was chosen by AcademyHealth to lead a year-long project that will bring together experts from leading surgical quality registries, along with patients, clinicians, and policymakers, to identify generalizable lessons and generate a toolkit of promising strategies to improve collection and use of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in health care. Kaiser Permanente and University of Washington will partner with FORCE in the project.
FORCE-TJR brings experience in collecting comprehensive outcome measures from more than 30,000 diverse TJR patients in 22 states, including high and low volume hospitals in which 75% of surgeons are community-based. Similar to STS (cardiac surgery) and NSQIP (general surgery), FORCE-TJR measures outcomes and adverse events, risk adjusts for co-morbidities, and provides comprehensive, comparative data to improve TJR patient care, meet reporting requirements, compare performance to peer surgeons/institutions, and secure quality incentive payments. 
The one-year project, “Collaborating to Promote the Collection and Use of Patient-Reported Outcomes in Clinical Care,” was funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).