Patient-rated outcomes have become the centerpiece of the outcomes movement, as improvement and overall well-being are becoming the most desired form of outcomes valued by payers. While researchers have developed instruments such as the Short Form-36 (SF-36) to measure and quantify overall health status, these general questionnaires may not capture the outcomes of interest for patients with upper extremity injuries and conditions.

We have developed a hand-specific outcomes instrument: the Michigan Hand Outcomes Questionnaire (MHQ) - by applying psychometric principles to construct a tool capable of measuring health status domains that are important to patients with hand disorders.

The validity and responsiveness of the MHQ has been proven for a variety of common hand conditions and it is currently being used as the primary outcomes instrument in several multi-center NIH-funded trials. The broad utility of the MHQ gives researchers the benefit of using only one questionnaire for outcomes research related to the hand. This provides an opportunity to compare outcomes across different hand conditions.