Six U.S. healthcare systems are sharing a $9 million grant to research introducing electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePROs) into the routine practice of oncology providers to improve symptom management and to decrease hospitalizations.
The National Cancer Institute, in association with the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot Initiative, recently announced the funding of the collaboration, the SIMPRO (Symptom Management IMplementation of Patient Reported Outcomes in Oncology) Research Center. The SIMPRO team will work with Epic, the EHR system used by all six participating institutions, which are New Hampshire-based Dartmouth-Hitchcock, Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center in Boston, Baptist Memorial Medical Center in Memphis, Lifespan Cancer Institute in Rhode Island, West Virginia University Cancer Institute, and Maine Medical Center in Portland.
SIMPRO will develop, implement, and evaluate an ePRO reporting and management system through an app called eSyM. Patients’ smart devices will enable a secure connection to their cancer care team via the EHR, and facilitate symptom tracking following cancer surgery or chemotherapy. The study will test whether monitoring the symptoms patients experience and providing coaching on how to manage them can decrease the need for hospitalizations and emergency room visits.
“The opportunity to partner directly with Epic and their resources, to build these tools into our electronic health record, means in the short-term the research is more likely to bear fruit “and in the long-term that successful strategies can be disseminated around the country.” said Dartmouth-Hitchcock Chief Health Information Officer Peter Solberg, M.D., in a prepared statement,
After development and pilot testing, eSyM will be fully integrated into the EHR at each participating center, allowing for direct communication and real-time updates for clinicians who will have access to a dashboard of patients’ symptoms to prioritize outreach efforts and coaching.
The SIMPRO investigators will conduct a randomized trial to evaluate implementation of eSyM from a patient, clinician and health system perspective. Across all study phases, the implementation, adoption, acceptance, and adaptation of the ePRO system will be critically evaluated to promote better delivery of cancer care.
