Feasibility and accessibility of electronic patient-reported outcome measures using a smartphone during routine chemotherapy: a pilot study

Abstract

Purpose: There is growing interest in integrating electronic patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures into routine oncology practice for symptom monitoring. Here, we evaluated the feasibility and accessibility of electronic PRO measures using a smartphone (PRO-SMART) for cancer patients receiving routine chemotherapy.

Methods: The proposed PRO-SMART application obtains daily personal health record (PHR) data from cancer patients via a smartphone. An analysis report of cumulative PHR data is provided to the clinician in a format suitable for upload to electronic medical records (EMRs). Cancer outpatients who had received at least two cycles of chemotherapy and who were scheduled for two more cycles were enrolled.

Results: Between February 2015 and December 2016, 111 patients were screened and 101 of these were included. One-hundred patients used PRO-SMART at least once and were included in the final analysis (90.1% overall accessibility among all screened patients). The number of symptomatic adverse events (AEs) related to chemotherapy recorded in EMRs (mean ± standard deviation [SD]) increased from 0.92 ± 0.80 to 2.26 ± 1.80 (P < 0.001), and grading of AEs increased from 0.81 ± 0.69 to 1.00 ± 0.62 (P = 0.029). After using PRO-SMART, the numeric rating scale for pain (mean ± SD) increased from 0.20 ± 0.72 to 0.99 ± 1.55 (P < 0.001). A patient-reported questionnaire revealed that 64.2% of patients found it useful and 83% found it easy to use.

Conclusions: This study suggests that the proposed PRO-SMART is feasible and accessible for assessment of symptomatic AEs in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy for a prospective randomized trial.