Using Technology to Engage Patients and Clinicians in Electronic Cancer Symptom Assessment and Management: Lessons Learned and Implications for Practice

Medicine 2.0

Many cancer patients struggle with the physical and emotional pain caused by cancer symptoms. Patients and care providers often find it challenging to effectively communicate their symptoms because of minimal use of standardized symptom assessment tools and inconsistent pain and symptom management practices. Paper tools are the norm but they are not accessible to all team members, cannot be viewed across the system unless they are manually entered into a database, and are not easily shared across care settings (e.g. hospitals, home care) or able to show a patient's symptom severity scores over time. The Interactive Symptom Assessment and Collection (ISAAC) tool developed by Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) is an easy-to-use, standardized, secure, electronic tool that allows patients to complete an interactive version of the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS) tool 1. ISAAC puts patients in control of their own symptom assessment and engages them directly in the symptom management process. Patients simply enter their symptom severity scores for nine common cancer symptoms electronically on a touch-screen computer kiosk, which sits at their regional cancer centre, or from their home computer via the internet. Clinicians can access a patient's symptom information, regardless of where the patient entered their scores - clinic, home, or at another cancer centre - and can track this information over time and across health care settings. ISAAC also provides Cancer Care Ontario with the data to report on symptom screening across Ontario and the patient experience. Preliminary evaluation of ISAAC has been positive. Users of ISAAC surveyed gave high ratings to its ease of use and clarity. Clinicians and other stakeholders reported that it allows for better management of the disease if symptoms can be detected as they arise, in real-time. The patient histograms were seen as extremely useful in care management, by providing clinicians with a snapshot of a patient's experience with various symptoms and a view of this experience of over time. This presentation will provide an overview of the ISAAC tool and its development. Challenges in facilitating home-based use of ISAAC will be discussed along with issues related to system integration with electronic records and the electronic challenge of supporting the patient/clinician interaction across care settings.

Using Technology to Engage Patients and Clinicians in Electronic Cancer Symptom Assessment and Management: Lessons Learned and Implications for Practice [05 Aud 1330 Carr]