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URMC / Patients & Families / MyChart / Health Surveys

Health Surveys Made Simple

At almost every doctor’s visit, we ask a series of questions aimed at helping our care teams better understand your health history, mental health, physical function, pain and more.

While these surveys are informative, they can often be repetitive, confusing and inconvenient – taking up valuable time that both patients and providers would often rather spend talking about your individual health, concerns and goals.

Starting August 14, 2023, UR Medicine is standardizing our mental health, physical function and pain health surveys across the system – ensuring that we are using these patient questionnaires in a consistent, effective and efficient way.

Every 6 months, regardless of appointment type, patients will be asked a series of questions about their mental health, pain and physical function. For pediatric patients, only mental health questions will be asked (not pain or physical function).

By answering these health questionnaires, patients provide important information to their care team as we build the treatment plan. Their answers also help us guide how we look at the health of our entire community and where we invest resources to improve outcomes.

For your convenience, we strongly recommend that patients complete their questionnaires via eCheck-In, prior to arriving at their provider’s office for their appointment. By completing prior to arriving, you’ll be able to see your provider more quickly.

For patients who do not complete eCheck-In prior to arriving, we will ask you to complete the survey on your own device, an office-owned tablet or one of our Welcome kiosks.

By standardizing our questionnaires for mental health, physical function and pain interference, we can ensure that our surveys are: 

  • Asked at more regular and appropriate intervals.
  • Less repetitive.
  • Consistent and simplified across services, clinics and programs, across our system.
  • Reviewed and acknowledged by your care team, improving communication.
  • Inclusive, improving equity in care.
  • Compliant with regulatory requirements.
  • Decreased use of paper, which is better for the environment and reduces costs.

There are three main reasons why patients should answer their health questionnaires; 

  1. We know that using patient-reported surveys and outcomes improves patient-provider communication and our shared understanding of your health issues and trajectory. We use your answers to the surveys to help direct your treatment plan and improve your health outcomes.
  2. We want to be respectful of your time. When patients answer these surveys ahead of time via eCheck-In, they’re able to spend less time filling out paperwork during their appointment, helping the appointment run smoother.
  3. Your survey answers also help us guide how we look at the health of our entire community and inform where we invest resources to improve our region’s health outcomes.  

If you have more questions about how your answers to health surveys impact your care, please ask your UR Medicine provider.

Responses to health questionnaires are shared with your care team and help to inform your providers about key factors that impact patient wellness and outcomes.

Your survey answers also help us guide how we look at the health of our entire community and inform where we invest resources to improve population health outcomes.

Our core questionnaire (medications, allergies, social and family history), fall risk, intimate partner violence and specialty service questionnaires will be part of later phases of this project. We’ll continue to keep our patients, providers and community informed.