Introducing BMJ Outcomes
Improving
outcome
measures
In healthcare today there are dramatic variations in
delivery, process and clinical outcomes across most
health systems. For patients this means a real
geographical lottery in receiving high quality care.
Current interventions - such as anticoagulation,
hysterectomy, and cancer screening - and their
outcomes not only differ at an international level but
can show extreme local variation.
Key features proposed
Existing measures of clinical outcome are often
poorly constructed with no standardised structure
making comparisons difficult. Without this the ability
to inform and benchmark high quality care is
ineffective.
• Open access peer-reviewed journal
of implementation reports
We feel that by harnessing the power of the global
healthcare community to ‘crowd source’, consolidate,
and improve knowledge in this area we can then help
increase the impact of outcome measurement.
Moving towards a standardised and best practice set
of outcome measures will allow organisations and
individuals to benchmark high quality care and
identify exemplar provision.
By helping providers and commissioners understand
where their outcomes can be improved, we hope to
help deliver measurable and sustained improvements
for patients.
• Global directory of user rated outcome
measures
• Development of an agreed standard
structure for measures
• Online community to connect, share
and improve implementation
• Collaborative work areas to enable
shared development
• Global directory and profiles of
individuals and organisations
• Learning modules, tools and
resources to support development
The vision for BMJ Outcomes
Working in collaboration with key international organisations and thinkers, BMJ is embarking on a new
initiative to provide a journal and community for the publication of outcome measures.
The vision is to create an international forum for debate and consolidation of knowledge on how to measure
the key outcomes that matter for patients, professionals, providers, payers and the public.
We anticipate BMJ Outcomes will contribute to a growing body of best practice in the approach to outcomes
measurement at an individual, organisational, regional, national, and international level.
We expect that the repository and community will include process and clinical measures across:
• Clinical outcomes
• Patient reported outcomes
• Safety measures
• Social care measures
A new global community
One of the key objectives is to support the
global community in working towards an
agreed standard for documenting and sharing
outcome measures. To support this we will be
offering a new open access and peer reviewed
journal which we hope will create a more
valuable role for outcome measures and their
implementation.
We have also developed a collaborative
platform to allow individuals and groups to work
on developing measures independently or
collaborate with colleagues
from the global
community.
This will enable teams in different locations to
improve the structure of existing measures and
test their efficacy and validity in clinical settings.
In addition to the virtual communities we will
also be recruiting mentors to offer support and
advice. Regular, chaired webinar sessions will
offer the opportunity to learn, share, and discuss
the latest developments and knowledge.
To support excellence in the construction of
new measures, and the ongoing improvement
of existing ones, we will also be curating a suite
of tools and learning modules to support best
practice.
Development will be guided by our user
community but also by an international advisory
board of key strategic thinkers to ensure it best
meets the needs of the outcomes community.
Contact us for more information and to join our consultation group
BMA House, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9JR, UK
T +44 (0) 20 7383 6470
E [email protected]
quality.bmj.com/bmj-outcomes
W company.bmj.com