Oral Presentation Clinical Oncology Society of Australia Annual Scientific Meeting 2017

Does it matter who addresses the psychosocial issues as long as someone does? (#35)

Afaf Girgis 1 , Geoff P Delaney 1 2 , Anthony Arnold 1 3 , Ivana Durcinoska 1 , Martha Gerges 1 , Nasreen Kaadan 1 2 , Stephen Della-Fiorentina 4
  1. Centre for Oncology Education and Research Translation (CONCERT), Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research, UNSW Sydney, Liverpool, NEW SOUTH WALES, Australia
  2. Liverpool Cancer Therapy Centre, Liverpool Hospital, Liverpool, NSW, Australia
  3. Illawarra Cancer Care Centre, Wollongong Hospital, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
  4. Macarthur Cancer Therapy Centre, Campbelltown Hospital, Campbelltown, NSW, Australia

Background/Aim: Routine assessment and clinical utilisation of patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures can lead to improved patient wellbeing and survival outcomes. PROMPT-Care is a newly developed eHealth system which facilitates PRO data capture from cancer patients, data linkage and retrieval to support clinical decisions and patient self-management, and data retrieval to support ongoing evaluation and innovative research. It has been demonstrated to be acceptable and feasible. This presentation examines the extent to which clinical feedback reports of PROs are reviewed and acted on by the cancer care team.

Methods: Eligible patients are those currently receiving cancer care or scheduled to commence cancer treatment at four participating cancer centres. Patients completed PROMPT-Care assessments online approximately monthly, via an emailed link. The clinical feedback report of patients’ PROs can be viewed in the OIS by any treatment team member. Furthermore, if the patient’s scores on any PROs breach a predefined threshold on two consecutive assessments, an alert is generated in the OIS, with an email generated for review and action by a designated team of nurse care coordinators.

Results: To date 328 patients have completed a total of 1447 PROMPT-Care assessments. Approximately one in five reports were reviewed by a member of the cancer care team, the majority being nursing staff. Of 430 clinical alerts generated, 290 (67%) were reviewed by the designated care coordinator, who resolved the majority of issues through referral or contact with the patient. For a minority of alerts (n=42), no further action was deemed necessary.

Discussion: This research investigates implementation of evidence into real world clinical practice. Actioning of the PROMPT-Care report recommendations was largely undertaken by care coordinators. Implications for implementing PROMPT-Care in routine care will be discussed.

Funding: Cancer Institute NSW, Bupa Health Foundation