Comprehensive Patient Reported Outcomes (PRO) Management for Oncology Practice

Cancer symptoms due to disease progression or side effects caused by cancer treatment are prevalent. Most cancer patients are treated in outpatient settings. Patients may be provided with patient education materials and counseled on anticipated side effects while being provided with different self-management options and warnings regarding when medical care is required. Despite these efforts, many people feel set adrift in having to self-manage treatment and illness related symptoms at home resulting in a sense of burden for the patient and the caregiver.

When the patient does visit the doctor, they increasingly are asked questions to elicit information about symptoms and performance using structured questionnaires that are shown to give reproducible, meaningful, quantitative assessments of how patients feel and how they function—measures that are called patient reported outcomes or PROs. The questionnaires used to collect this information are called PRO instruments. The use of PRO instruments is part of a general movement toward the idea that the patient, properly queried, is the best source of information about how he or she feels. The goal of using PRO measures is to provide better information to doctors and patients so that the best treatment for patients can be determined.

PURPOSE: To reduce the isolation of patients/caregivers from the medical care team and to improve patient/provider communication and clinical decisions by keeping documented daily reports of patient symptoms online, having notifications sent to the medical team of moderate to severe symptoms and by reviewing these reports at clinic visits with the medical staff.