Routine monitoring of all postoperative outcomes at one year: longitudinal study at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital

The interest of providers, purchasers, politicians, and patients has focused sharply on outcome analysis in recent years,1 but true “measurement” of outcome can be practised only on small subgroups of patients because of the problems inherent in running randomised controlled trials2 and in interpreting the results of any less formal type of study.3 Simple outcome “monitoring”4 may provide a means of harnessing outcomes data on large groups of patients unsuitable for true outcome measurement. We undertook an intensive study of outcome monitoring to establish whether a useful gauge of subjective outcome could be obtained on the majority of a large heterogenous group of surgical patients after an interval of one year. From 9 February 1993 to 9 December 1993 all patients being entered on the waiting list for surgery at our hospital were asked by the surgeon in clinic to identify their primary surgical goal, such as “to improve breathing through the nose.” For children (under 16 years) the goal was …