Patient Preference Research in Otolaryngology: What Do Patients Want?

As the US health care economy continues the painstaking transformation from a volume-based to a value-based system, it becomes increasingly important to define what constitutes value to patients. Over the past 2 decades, the patient perspective of value has often been accounted for using quality of life (QOL) metrics.¹ Quality-of-life measures incorporate a wide spectrum of dimensions, including symptomatic and functional improvement, cognitive and/or emotional perceptions of health, and overall satisfaction.² Nevertheless, QOL measures often exclude the important component of value as perceived by the patient. Patient-centered health care requires more than just an evaluation of QOL—it requires this patient-centric measurement of value.