Amplifying the Patient Voice: A Survey of Practitioners' Use of Patient-reported Outcome Measures Across Radiotherapy Providers in England

The use of electronic Patient Reported Outcomes in follow-up after palliative radiotherapy: A survey study in Belgium

“…The vast majority of respondents were non-users or few-users of (e)PROMs in routine clinical care after palliative radiotherapy, which is similar to data on (e)PROM use from other studies in (non-palliative) radiotherapy [ 35 ]. However, the respondents acknowledged the importance of (e)PROMs and were generally eager to implement and use them, despite the potential increased workload associated with their use.…”

“…The importance of (e)PROM integration within existing systems and practices, without creating additional demands on staff to initially implement PROMs, analyze/use the data collected and support patients in PROMs completion, is well known [ 32 , 33 , 35 , 36 , 38 , 39 ]. While we did not specifically ask about all these implementation barriers in our survey, the lack of staff support and need for an integration of (e)PROMs in the clinical workflow was reported by several respondents spontaneously, demonstrating that this is an ongoing concern.…”

“…One of the suggestions in this survey was dedicating a nurse navigator or care coordinator for the implementation and follow-up of (e)PROMs. Employing a nurse navigator for (e)PROM follow-up seems a good idea and has been suggested in other studies as well [ 31 , 35 , 40 ]. Continuous support from a nurse navigator could provide patients with better continuity of care, especially as radiotherapy plays only a small part in the care of palliative patients.…”

“…Despite their willingness to do so, (e)PROMs are not often used in clinical practice in this setting. Currently, (e)PROMs after palliative radiotherapy are mostly used in research or for benchmarking purposes, not for follow-up and symptom management of individual patients [ 29 , 35 ].…”