BackgroundThe International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM) was founded in 2012 to propose consensus-based measurement tools and documentation for different conditions and populations.This article describes how the ICHOM Older Person Working Group followed a consensus-driven modified Delphi technique to develop multiple global outcome measures in older persons.The standard set of outcome measures developed by this group will support the ability of healthcare systems to improve their care pathways and quality of care. An additional benefit will be the opportunity to compare variations in outcomes which encourages and supports learning between different health care systems that drives quality improvement. These outcome measures were not developed for use in research. They are aimed at non researchers in healthcare provision and those who pay for these services.MethodsA modified Delphi technique utilising a value based healthcare framework was applied by an international panel to arrive at consensus decisions.To inform the panel meetings, information was sought from literature reviews, longitudinal ageing surveys and a focus group.ResultsThe outcome measures developed and recommended were participation in decision making, autonomy and control, mood and emotional health, loneliness and isolation, pain, activities of daily living, frailty, time spent in hospital, overall survival, carer burden, polypharmacy, falls and place of death mapped to a three tier value based healthcare framework.ConclusionsThe first global health standard set of outcome measures in older persons has been developed to enable health care systems improve the quality of care provided to older persons.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12877-017-0701-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

<b><i>Background:</i></b> Neuropsychological tests are influenced by culture, language, level of education, and literacy, but there are few cognitive tests of which the applicability in ethnic minority populations has been studied. <b><i>Objectives:</i></b> The aim of this study was to assess the reliability and validity of the Visual Association Test (VAT), a test of visual association memory, in a non-Western, low-educated memory clinic population. Additionally, a modified version of the VAT using colored photographs instead of line drawings was studied (mVAT). <b><i>Method:</i></b> Both the original VAT and the mVAT were administered to non-Western immigrants (<i>n</i> = 73) from 2 multicultural memory clinics in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and a control sample of non-demented Turkish elderly (<i>n</i> = 14) with low education levels (32 and 29% illiterate, respectively). <b><i>Results:</i></b> Both the VAT and the mVAT were able to discriminate persons with and without dementia (area under the curve: VAT, 0.77–0.88; mVAT, 0.85–0.95). The mVAT had more homogeneous item difficulty levels than the VAT. Administration of parallel versions of the VAT and the mVAT within the same person revealed higher scores on the mVAT (<i>Z</i> = –3.35, <i>p</i> = 0.001). <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> The mVAT is a reliable and valid measure of memory in non-Western immigrants. Clinicians and researchers should be aware that the memory performance of immigrants may be systematically underestimated when using tests with black-and-white line drawings, such as the original VAT.

The TOPICS-SF has been selected as PROM for the older patient receiving geriatric care and is feasible in practice. More research in different settings and with different moments of measurements is needed to evaluate the responsiveness of TOPICS-SF and the conditions for feasible implementation in daily practice.

Purpose The added value of measuring patient-reported outcomes (PROs) for delivering patient-centered care and assessment of healthcare quality is increasingly evident. However, healthcare system wide data collection initiatives are hampered by the proliferation of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and conflicting data collection standards. As part of a national initiative of the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport we developed a consensus-based standard set of generic PROs and PROMs to be implemented across Dutch medical specialist care. Methods A working group of mandated representatives of umbrella organizations involved in Dutch medical specialist care, together with PROM experts and patient organizations worked through a structured, consensus-driven co-creation process. This included literature reviews, online expert and working group meetings, and feedback from national patient- and umbrella organizations. The ‘PROM-cycle’ methodology was used to select feasible, valid, and reliable PROMs to obtain domain scores for each of the PROs included in the set. Results Eight PROs across different domains of health were ultimately endorsed: symptoms (pain & fatigue), functioning (physical, social/participation, mental [anxiety & depression]), and overarching (quality of life & perceived overall health). A limited number of generic PROMs was endorsed. PROMIS short forms were selected as the preferred instruments for all PROs. Several recommendations were formulated to facilitate healthcare system level adoption and implementation of the standard set. Conclusions We developed a consensus-based standard set of Generic PROMs and a set of recommendations to facilitate healthcare system wide implementation across Dutch medical specialist care.

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