Increasing Symptom Recognition Using Electronic Patient-Reported Outcomes in an Oncology Research Clinic.

Background: The subjective nature of symptoms makes them challenging for providers to effectively assess. Implementing electronic patient-reported outcome (ePRO) surveys could improve symptom recognition and decrease emergency department (ED) visits and symptom severity while increasing psychosocial discussions.

Local problem: An oncology clinic's initial symptom assessment process focused on common oncological complaints, leading to unmet symptom management needs and resulting in approximately 23 monthly ED visits.

Methods: Iterative Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles were used to guide this project.

Intervention: Patients completed ePRO surveys which allowed visits to be focused on self-identified severe symptoms.

Results: The average number of monthly ED visits declined from 23.25 to 19.5 (P = .10), and severe adverse events decreased from 0.27 to 0.25 (P = .95). Discussions concerning depression rose from 21% to 23.3% (P = .78).

Conclusions: Implementing ePRO surveys was associated with a reduction in ED visits and an increase in psychosocial conversations, indicating that ePROs may contribute to improved value-based care.