Using and implementing individual-level outcome measures in palliative care settings: a reflective commentary

Individual-level outcome measures are an important aspect of palliative care. They are tools that can drive high-quality, person-centred care through providing healthcare professionals and services with valuable information about the patients we see, supporting us in making important decisions on patient care, and helping us to evaluate the effectiveness of clinical interventions. By reflecting on contemporary evidence from within palliative care, this commentary has three purposes. Firstly, we describe what individual-level outcome measures are and make the case for their importance within palliative care. Secondly, we highlight how we may get the most out of these outcome measures through using them in different ways. Finally, we reflect on the challenges to implementing outcome measures and advocate for the adoption of a ‘whole-systems’ approach that is complemented by implementation science when integrating them into practice. We provide practical advice and considerations on how this approach may be adopted. Accordingly, we hope that researchers working in this area, as well as those in clinical practice who are involved in using or implementing outcome measures across different settings of care, will reflect and critically engage with these suggestions in order to inform their implementation efforts and use of outcome measures