Charité – University Hospital Berlin opts for full integration of patient-reported outcome measurements with Heartbeat Medical

Through the inclusion of patients’ individual health characteristics in therapeutic decisions, quality of treatment and quality of life can be improved in the long term. Various departments in the Charité have been using Patient-Reported Outcome Measurements (PROMs) since 2016. Going forward, a standardised patient-reported survey is to be carried out in all hospital outpatient departments and during inpatient admissions with automatic follow-ups as an adjunct to the medical history. After full implementation in 2024, the patient journey of up to 800,000 patients per year could include the usage of digital PROMs.

The patient-reported data on physical, mental and social health is entered by the patient on site using a tablet or on their own device. The results are available to the treating medical team in real time. All departments will use a standardized, validated questionnaires to assess general health and quality of life, independent of the condition they are presenting with. The generic patient-reported outcome assessment is complemented by a disease-specific questionnaire to further add specific information relating to the patient case.

Yannik Schreckenberger, founder and CEO of Heartbeat Medical, welcomes Charité’s decision to implement digital Patient-Reported Outcome Measurements throughout the hospital: “Patients deserve the best possible care – and to achieve this, medical staff must have access to the best possible tools. Digital patient surveys have become part of everyday medical care, now it’s time for standardisation and better infromed decision-making. The methodological research at Charité on the comparability and analysis of patient-reported data offers invaluable potential to derive new learnings for patients now and those of tomorrow. We share Charité’s vision that the quality of medical interventions will become the focus of healthcare and its reimbursement. We look forward to strengthening our collaborative efforts to aid these advancements in healthcare.

Prof. Dr. Martin Kreis, Chief Medical Officer at Charité, comments: “A central component of our ‘Strategy 2030 – Rethinking Health’ is to focus on the value of medical treatment for patients. We have set ourselves the goal of collecting patient-reported health characteristics, so-called Patient-Reported Outcomes, throughout Charité by 2024 as part of the medical history and beyond. We are pleased to have Heartbeat Medical as a trustworthy partner by our side to reach this goal.” 

Dr. Sein Schmidt, Head of the German PROMIS National Center, which is located at Charité and funded by the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH), adds: “Patient-Reported Outcomes are the missing link for harmonised and value-based healthcare and research, where every patient becomes part of a learning ecosystem of personalised precision medicine. With Heartbeat Medical, we implement a digitalised solution to follow patients throughout their journey and evaluate innovation in a patient-centred way.

Prof. Dr. Matthias Rose, Center for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research at Charité and Director of the Medical Clinic with a focus on psychosomatics, emphasises: “The collaboration offers the opportunity to record patient-reported health characteristics as part of clinical routine, similar to the measurement of laboratory values. On the one hand, this can improve individual treatment, and on the other hand, the success of treatment can be assessed from the patient’s point of view on a constantly growing data basis. One of the prerequisites for improving patient-centred care and research.”