Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Post-Operative Outcomes: The University of Colorado Orthopaedic Surgery Monitoring of Outcomes System (U-COSMOS)
Authors: Hunt Kenneth J. , Hewitt Michael A. , York Shayne , Buckley Sara E. , Metzl Joshua A. , Moon Daniel K. , Grimsrud Courtney 
Published: November 2022

Category:

Other; Ankle; Hindfoot; Lesser Toes; Midfoot/Forefoot

Introduction/Purpose:

The automation and integration of patient reported outcomes (PROs) into standard of care practice and electronic health systems is becoming increasingly viable. While often collected as a quality assurance measure for a practice and surgical decision-making, PROs are also valuable to assess the relative treatment outcomes. In order for physicians to gain the most insight from PROs, more baseline outcomes are needed to serve as a benchmark of anticipated patient improvement following surgical interventions. The goal of this study is to evaluate differences in patient improvement among validated physical and mental health PROs in a foot and ankle surgery practice.

Methods:

Consecutive patients undergoing foot and ankle surgery were enrolled into the U-COSMOS pathway. All PROs are automatically distributed and tracked through a secure, HIPAA-compliant, online PRO data capture tool. All patients are invited to complete the PROMIS Physical Function (PF) Computer Adaptive Test (CAT), PROMIS Pain Interference CAT (PI), Foot and Ankle Single Assessment Numeric Evaluation (SANE), PROMIS Global Physical Health (GPH), PROMIS Global Mental Health (GMH), PROMIS Depression, and a brief resiliency scale (BRS). PROs are collected pre-operatively, and post-operatively at 3- months, 6-months, 12-months, and 24-months. In this study, differences between pre- and post-operative scores for each PRO are evaluated using an unpaired Mann-Whitney U Test.

Results:

To date, 3154 patients have been enrolled into the U-COSMOS foot and ankle surgery pathway. Overall survey compliance was 77%. A significant improvement was seen in PF, PI, SANE, and GPH at 6-months, 12-months, and 24-months (p < 0.0001, see Table 1). There was no significant improvement in PF or GPH at the 3-month mark, supporting reduction of pain interference may be observed before return of physical function. All PROs measuring changes in mental health or resilience (Depression, GMH, BRS) did not significantly change at any post-operative visit relative to baseline. We found a mild positive correlation between BRS and improved 12-month PF and PI outcomes and a mild inverse correlation between pre-operative depression and 12-month PI and PF scores.

Conclusion:

Our data suggests that foot and ankle surgery leads to significant improvement in physical outcomes such as function or pain interference, but mental health and resilience outcomes remain somewhat unchanged throughout treatment on average. Within physical outcomes, we also find significant improvement in pain interference precedes functional and general measures. Early findings from the U-COSMOS outcomes pathway demonstrates greater overall improvement in physical health PROs, and a sustained improvement up to 24 months post-op. Future investigation of outcomes specific to procedures and conditions within the U-COSMOS pathway will help elucidate anticipated variation from general trends.