RLO: Surrogate Outcomes

POEMs

As the name suggests, a POEM is an outcome that matters to a patient. The study has used an outcome which is a direct measure of

  1. How a patient feels, for example an improvement in quality of life following counselling for depression.
     
  2. How a patient functions, for example an improvement in walking distance following knee surgery.

  3. How a patient survives such as a reduction in death from heart attacks with lipid lowering drugs.

The outcome is clinically meaningful. It matters to the patient and of course, therefore, the health care professional.

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