At this year’s Asia-Pacific Healthcare Quality Conference, one of the most influential global advocates for patient quality of life took the stage. Jennifer L. Bright, Chief Executive Officer of the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM), addressed the growing need to redefine what healthcare quality truly means. In recent years, ICHOM has become widely known for advancing the integration of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) into healthcare evaluation.

Using standardized questionnaires, PROMs capture patients’ own assessments of functional recovery, quality of life, and the real-world impact of treatment. Since 2024, Newsweek’s World’s Best Hospitals rankings have incorporated patient-reported outcomes as part of their evaluation framework—and Taiwan’s SNQ is now set to become the first in Asia to adopt this indicator systematically.

Bright noted that for decades, healthcare systems have relied heavily on metrics such as mortality rates, complication rates, and hospital readmissions. From a patient’s perspective, however, successful treatment is not defined solely by survival. What often matters more is whether one can return to life with dignity, functional independence, and the ability to live normally. As chronic diseases become more prevalent and populations age rapidly, Quality of Life (QoL) has shifted from a supplementary indicator to a central component of healthcare value.

Healthcare systems worldwide are under mounting pressure from rising costs, demographic aging, and the growing burden of chronic illness. Despite continuous technological advances, patients’ lived experiences of health do not necessarily improve at the same pace. Evaluations based solely on mortality or disease control can obscure patients’ everyday realities—fatigue, pain, psychological distress, and functional limitations. The result is a system that delivers extensive medical intervention, yet does not always address what patients care about most.

Let Patients Define the Value of Care

According to Bright, Value-Based Healthcare (VBHC) requires simultaneous measurement of patient outcomes and costs. Within patient outcomes, quality of life should not be treated as an optional add-on, but as an indicator equal in importance to clinical metrics. High-value care is not about providing the most treatment, but about enabling patients to live better lives—with greater functional ability and less psychological burden—at a reasonable cost.

ICHOM’s PROMs framework directly responds to this need. Using diabetes as an example, Bright explained that ICHOM incorporates multiple scales to quantify patients’ perceptions of disease burden, mental well-being, and overall life satisfaction. These tools make visible the disconnect that can occur when clinical indicators look good—such as well-controlled blood glucose—while patients’ daily lives remain difficult or distressing. By revealing this gap, PROMs help clinicians recalibrate treatment strategies to strike a better balance between biomedical control and quality of life.

Bright also shared a case from a healthcare institution in Germany involving a patient with prostate cancer. Initially, the patient was scheduled to undergo two surgical procedures. After implementing ICHOM’s assessment tools, clinicians found that performing two surgeries offered no meaningful additional benefit. The treatment plan was revised to a single operation, sparing the patient unnecessary intervention without compromising outcomes.

ICHOM’s patient-centered evaluation framework has already been implemented across regions including North America, Latin America, Africa, and Europe. Bright emphasized that perceptions of quality of life vary by region and culture. “What people in Mexico expect from quality of life is not necessarily the same as what people expect elsewhere,” she noted, underscoring the importance of culturally sensitive outcome measurement.

When quality of life becomes something that can be systematically measured, compared, and fed back into care, healthcare quality is no longer defined solely by internal professional judgment. Instead, it becomes a shared decision-making process between clinicians and patients. As patients see their voices reflected in care decisions, trust in the healthcare system grows. Ultimately, Bright argued, this shift will make healthcare systems not only more valuable, but also more resilient in the face of future challenges.