Our Vision

A healthcare system designed by patients

Our Mission

To develop tools to improve the delivery of patient-centered care

Members

VOICES Center for Health Policy is focused on improving the health of patients with musculoskeletal conditions. We use qualitative and quantitative methods to develop tools that improve the delivery of patient-centered care.

Our Research

Patient values and preferences should drive healthcare decisions.  Patients, and how they define quality, should be how our health system defines “quality.”  Our goal is to create these definitions from the patient perspective and create tools to improve healthcare delivery. 

Tools

We have developed several tools for preference elicitation in common orthopaedic conditions. These tools educate patients about their diagnosis and treatment options to help patients make a decision that aligns with their values and preferences

Recent Publications

Time-dependent, patient-centered perceptions of quality measures for total joint arthroplasty: a cross-sectional, choice modeling study

Lemos JL, Welch JM, Amanatullah DF, Shapiro LM, Harris AHS, Kamal RN.

We administered a questionnaire to assess how TJA patients perceive measures of quality of care and assess if these perceptions change based on the phase of care., using best-worst scaling. We found patients placed the highest value on improving activities of daily living, decreasing pain, and avoiding re-intervention.

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Does Discussing Patient-reported Outcome Measures Increase Pain Self-efficacy at an Orthopaedic Visit? A Prospective, Sequential, Comparative Series

Schultz EA, Gomez GI, Gardner MJ, Hu SS, Safran M, Amanatullah DF, Shapiro LM, Kamal RN. 

We conducted a clinical study to determine if immediately discussing the results of a PROM was associated with an increase pain self-efficacy in new patients presenting to the orthopaedic surgery clinic. We found that discussing PROMs results (PROMIS PF-SF10a) at the point of care did not increase pain self-efficacy during one visit.

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Utilization of Surgical Fixation for Distal Radius Fractures in the United States: A Population-Based Cohort Study

Zhuang T, Young B, Shapiro LM, Kamal RN. 

We conducted a claims analysis of patients with distal radius fractures and characterized the proportion of patients who underwent open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) over time. We stratified our analysis by surgeon subspecialty, region, and mean area income. We found The proportion of distal radius ORIF including in older adult populations is increasing in all US regions, and an increasing proportion is performed by hand surgeons.

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