Background The value of patient-reported outcomes (PRO) is increasingly recognized in patient-centered care. Longitudinal data collection may be challenging and cost prohibitive. Automation of PRO collection may complement routine clinical follow-up, especially for procedures aiming to improve quality of life, such as atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation. Methods We aimed to develop a fully automated platform to collect PRO and evaluate its first clinical application in a prospective cohort of AF ablation. The duration of follow-up and data availability were assessed with automated PRO and routine follow-up versus routine follow-up alone (primary outcome). Quality of life and healthcare utilization (secondary outcomes) by PRO were assessed. Results Between 2013 and 2016, 2175 patients were eligible to receive 10 903 PRO assessment invitations, and the automated platform sent all invitations as programmed. More follow-up assessments were obtained with automated PRO and routine follow-up compared with routine follow-up alone (12 859 versus 10 248; P<0.0001) which allowed longer duration of follow-up (378 versus 217 days, 74% increase; P<0.0001). By automated PRO, a large number of disease-specific variables were collected and showed improvement in quality of life (baseline median AF symptom severity score AFSSS of 12 [6-18] and ranged between 2 and 3 on subsequent assessments; P<0.0001). This improvement was also true for each of the AFSSS individual components ( P<0.0001). In PRO, there was a significant reduction in AF burden (such as frequency and duration of episodes; P<0.0001) and associated healthcare utilization (including emergency visits and hospitalizations; P<0.0001) after the ablation procedures. Conclusions A fully automated system for PRO collection enhanced clinical follow-up and allowed collection of disease-specific data when applied in a prospective cohort of AF ablation.
Keywords: ablation; atrial fibrillation; automation; hospitalization; quality of life.