Key Takeaways
Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) data puts the patient voice front and center in clinical decision making.
Proactively addressing symptoms by leveraging PRO data helps improve patient quality of life.
User-friendly platforms can ease the implementation and use of PROs in cancer care.
Capturing the patient voice is essential to providing quality, longitudinal cancer care. Oncologists can use patient-reported outcomes (PROs) data to incorporate patients’ experience into their clinical decision making and improve the patient care journey. Leveraging this data allows clinicians to deliver interventions that can address symptom burden early, improve outcomes, and create better quality of life.
Improving quality of life with PROs
In an ideal world, a patient undergoing cancer treatment connects with their care team frequently to monitor both their progress and their quality of life. Cancer treatment is intense, and the side effects are harsh and can be difficult to manage. Learning about these side effects early would allow oncologists to intervene and help the patient maintain a high quality of life.
Despite increased touch points and advances in oncology nurse navigation programs, capturing the effects of treatment frequently may be beyond the capacity of many oncology teams.
Relying on only in-person or phone assessments can yield incomplete information. In surveys, 80% of patients report omitting important medical information when talking to their doctors for embarrassment or fear of being judged.1 Around 86% of patients say they are more comfortable answering sensitive questions honestly via a self-reporting tool.2
This is where PRO data collection can prove especially useful—giving patients a voice, while allowing them to feel safe and comfortable in the process.
Moving from reactive to proactive care with PROs
According to the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) EHR Oncology Advisory Workgroup, providers using PROs can proactively monitor their patients using remote symptom monitoring. With the traditional approach to care, providers assess and address symptoms during planned clinical interactions. However, this can lead to under-detection of the burden patient symptoms have on their daily life. Outside of planned appointments, patients may only report symptoms to their clinician when they have become severe enough for them to seek care.3
PROs allow providers to hear from patients between visits and assess the effect of symptoms on patients’ quality of life. The data collected through these questionnaires can provide actionable insights to the care team to manage the symptom burden before the patient abandons their medication protocol or needs costlier interventions.
This approach creates tangible results, according to the NCCN. In a recently published commentary, the workgroup determined that proactive symptoms monitoring facilitated by PROs demonstrated multiple clinical benefits, including:
Improved communication. In studies, patients have reported having improved discussion with clinicians who used PRO information for their care.
Improved medication compliance. When comfort is actively monitored and improved, patients are more likely to adhere to their important treatment plan.
Reduced hospital encounters. Several studies have found reduced acute admissions and urgent care visits when providers use PROs. This may be because capturing the patient voice allows providers to address symptoms early before they require higher level interventions.
Improved overall survival. Similar to reducing hospitalizations, addressing symptoms early by capturing them before they become severe helps prevent negative downstream effects.3
How to maximize PROs for cancer care
To successfully implement and leverage PROs data for oncology, the NCCN workgroup noted that providers and facilities must overcome technical, resource, and time constraints that exist across oncology care settings.
The right user-friendly platform can make self-reporting of PROs easy and overcome barriers for more complete data collection. Meanwhile, with advanced analytics, providers can benchmark their data against expected clinical outcomes. With these insights, care teams can identify trends and make timely interventions for improved cancer care that puts the patient’s experience front and center.
Explore the possibilities of PROs
PROs bring tremendous untapped potential for changing the way cancer centers deliver patient care. Expanding PRO use can put your patients at the center of their care journey, guide better treatment choices, and enable timely symptom management.
With the right tools, providers can enhance the PRO collection process, ultimately leading to better outcomes and enhanced patient quality of life. PatientIQ has scaled PROMs collection and analysis for healthcare organizations nationwide, and can provide the tools oncological leaders need to assess patient progress and improve clinical care.
To learn more about how PROs can enhance the clinical value of cancer care, read our fact sheet.
1Andrea Gurmankin Levy, Scherer, A. M., Zikmund-Fisher, B. J., Larkin, K., Barnes, G. D., & Fagerlin, A. (2018). Prevalence of and Factors Associated With Patient Nondisclosure of Medically Relevant Information to Clinicians. JAMA Network Open, 1(7), e185293–e185293. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.5293
2Arora, S., Goldberg, A. D., & Menchine, M. (2014). Patient Impression and Satisfaction of a Self-administered, Automated Medical History Taking Device in the Emergency Department. Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, 15(1), 35–40. https://doi.org/10.5811/westjem.2013.2.11498