Patient Activation Measure

PAM (Patient Activation Measure) is an evidence-based clinical scoring system that is used regularly in UK and US health systems to help ensure that health services and support are tailored to your individual needs.

Your score is determined by answering a series of short questions which assess your beliefs about what your role should be in your overall care, your knowledge and your confidence in managing your own health, and your existing use of self-management behaviours.

After you have completed the series of short questions in the PAM tool, you will be graded with an activation score. The activation score is ranked between 0 and 100.

Depending on your activation score you will be classified as Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 or Level 4.

The highest score is Level 4. The lowest score is Level 1. The higher the score the less likely you need support. The lower the score, the more likely you will benefit from more targeted support around your health condition.

Based on your score, we will adjust the frequency and methods we use to proactively engage with you.

We use this score to work out how active we need to be in terms of providing you with health education and resources. This allows us to efficiently target our clinical resources to benefit you.

PAM has been extensively researched and has been shown to be a valid measure of patient activation. Studies have shown that higher PAM level scores are associated with healthier behaviours, better health outcomes, and lower healthcare costs.

Because PAM is a dynamic measure, we require users to re-submit the questionnaire once every 3 months. This allows us to make sure that you are receiving the right frequency of health information, education, and most importantly support. When you are due to update your questionnaire, we will send you a friendly reminder notification which you will see in your ‘My Notifications’. You should go to the PAM tool to redo the assessment and obtain a new score.

NowPatient continuously assesses your health profile and your PAM score. We use this information to predict which resources we believe may be beneficial to you and at what frequency. For example, if you have Heart Disease and a lower PAM score, we will publish Heart Disease related content and educational resources into your account dashboard through a smart feed. We may also recommend community forum rooms that focus on Heart Disease so you can get peer support.