Six health systems have used an electronic symptom management tool they designed in Epic to report cancer treatment and postoperative symptoms on more than 5,600 patients, EpicShare reported Feb. 7.
The tool, eSyM, helped communicate, assess and manage electronic patient-reported outcomes, in order to make it a more natural part of cancer treatment and recovery for both patients and physicians.
Here's how they did it:
- The health systems identified patients who would benefit from the eSym tool by using Epic registers.
- Epic registers identified patients starting new chemotherapy plans and all patients being discharged after surgery for suspected gastrointestinal, gynecological or thoracic malignancies. Patients added to the registries were automatically signed up for MyChart.
- The eSym tool was then embedded into MyChart to allow patients to report cancer treatment and postoperative symptoms to MyChart questionnaires.
- Once completed, the questionnaires generated feedback about patient symptoms and provide them with tips in eSym's about how to manage them.
- If a patient experienced severe symptoms that required a follow-up appointment, that patient's care team received a notification from the questionnaire, allowing the team to contact the patient quickly.
The eSym tool provided a way for physicians and care teams to collect symptom information directly from patients while also being able to manage symptoms in real time.
The following health systems made up the team that created the eSyM tool: Memphis, Tenn.-based Baptist Memorial Hospital; Boston, Mass.-based Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Lebanon, N.H.-based Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center; Providence, R.I-based Lifespan Cancer Institute; Portland-based Maine Medical Center; and, Morgantown-based West Virginia University Cancer Center.