Over the past decades, the measurement of health outcomes has undergone a substantial transformation – from traditional clinical indicators toward patient-centred measurements encompassing quality of life, subjective health, and patient experiences. This publication explores the evolution of the Clinical Outcome Assessment ecosystem (COA ecosystem), including Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs), Patient-Reported Experience Measures (PREMs), Clinician-Reported Outcomes (ClinROs), Observer-Reported Outcomes (ObsROs), and Performance Outcomes (PerfOs).
The paper presents the development of the concept of Health-Related Quality of Life (HrQoL) and the role of patient-reported outcomes in contemporary medicine, public health, and health technology assessment. Special emphasis is placed on the need for the terminological and conceptual introduction of these approaches into the Bulgarian academic and professional context.
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