Implementing an Electronic Patient-Based Orthopaedic Outcomes System: Factors Affecting Patient Participation Compliance.

INTRODUCTION: Few studies have reported on the optimization of patient compliance within outcome registries and no studies exist on orthopaedic outcome registries in the military to date. Our aim is to report on the compliance rate of an electronic, web-based, patient-reported outcomes program, with particular emphasis on the effect of variables in data acquisition on survey compliance at a single military installation.

METHODS: 1,814 patients were entered into the database allowing patients to complete subjective preoperative validated scores. Patient compliance and completeness was calculated. Furthermore, we compared compliance rates for paper vs. electronic platforms and length of survey.

RESULTS: 40% complied without staff intervention. This increased to 73% with staff intervention. The electronic platform had a higher compliance rate (67%) and lower incompletion rate (3%) than paper (59%, p = 0.044). Short form compliance was 89% compared to standard form of 70% (p = 0.006).

CONCLUSIONS: This is the first report of an orthopaedic registry in a U.S. military population. Self-prompted compliance occurred in 40% of patients and can be increased to over 70% with staff intervention. Electronic platforms are logistically simpler, and result in higher patient compliance, as do shorter survey lengths. Further study on longer term compliance is warranted.