This project will evaluate the benefit of an automated home symptom monitoring system, Symptom Care at Home, to track COVID-19 symptoms, provide instructions to reduce COVID-19 exposure, and reduce cancer symptom severity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The investigators will determine if Symptom Care at Home decreases the need for cancer patients to use emergency departments and hospitalization for cancer symptom care. The project addresses the urgent public health need for cancer patients to reduce their risk for COVID-19 exposure.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an opportunity to rapidly flex platforms for remote cancer symptom tracking and management to incorporate COVID-19 symptom monitoring and reinforce risk-reducing precautions. It is critical for cancer patients at home to monitor early indications of COVID-19 symptoms, to adhere to mitigation strategies, as well as to manage their cancer-related symptoms so that patients can decrease the need to utilize the emergency department or unplanned hospitalizations for symptom care, which is a common occurrence during cancer care. Remote monitoring adds a layer of home-based support which can benefit all cancer patients and is not restricted to geographic proximity to oncology providers or distance from a cancer center. The Symptom Care at Home (SCH) system, utilized for the Principal Investigator's currently funded R01CA206522 project to monitor and manage patient-reported (PRO) cancer symptoms, includes these necessary elements: remote PRO symptom monitoring, patient self-management information, and oncology provider (nurse practitioner) notification of symptoms exceeding pre-set thresholds. The overall purpose of this project is to describe the impacts of COVID-19 on cancer patients' well-being at home and evaluate, through a randomized clinical trial, if a systematic patient-reported outcomes (PRO) reporting process improves cancer care during a pandemic as compared to usual care. Specific Aims include: 1) describe patient-reported COVID-19 and cancer symptom trajectories over time, COVID-19 social distancing and hygiene practices, and COVID-19 related cancer treatment and daily living impacts on cancer patients receiving the SCH-COVID intervention and 2) compare the SCH-COVID intervention to enhanced usual care on health care utilization, COVID-19 diagnosis and outcomes, cancer treatment delays or changes, and patient-reported global health, anxiety, mood, and feelings of social isolation.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
SUPPORTIVE_CARE
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
301
In addition to receiving usual care from their oncologist and staff, the SCH intervention group will report COVID-19 and cancer-related symptom presence and severity daily into the automated SCH system. Participants in the intervention receive automated self-management support messages for symptoms reported. In addition, COVID-19 symptoms and poorly controlled or worsening cancer symptoms will generate alerts. Based on preset thresholds, alerts automatically generate immediately from the patient's daily call data. The study nurse practitioners (NPs) monitor alerts. The NPs provide follow-up care using the guideline based SCH symptom clinical decision support system. The NPs log into the SCH Alert and Call Data website which displays all of the patients who have called that day and met an alert threshold. The NP calls the patient, delivers symptom management care by phone, and documents care in the patients' electronic health records.
Huntsman Cancer Institute
Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
Health Care Utilization Comparison
Retrospective chart review of health care utilization of both groups
Time frame: 5 months
Patient Social Isolation
Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System- Short Form v2.0 Social Isolation- 6a. The PROMIS Social Isolation item bank assesses perceptions of being avoided, excluded, detached, disconnected from, or unknown by, others. The item bank does not use a time frame (e.g. over the past seven days) when assessing social isolation. A higher PROMIS T-score represents more of the concept being measured. For negatively-worded concepts like Social Isolation, a T-score of 60 is one SD worse than average. By comparison, a Social Isolation Tscore of 40 is one SD better than average.
Time frame: Monthly for 5 months
COVID-19 Symptoms, Social distancing and Hygiene Practices
Patient reported outcomes collected in automated SCH system daily of COVID-19 symptoms, social distancing and hygiene practices, and COVID-19 related cancer treatment impacts and daily living impacts on cancer patients receiving the SCH -COVID intervention. The investigators will describe patterns of cancer patients and their adherence to social distancing and hygiene practices over time.
Time frame: Daily for 5 months
Patient Global Health
Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System Scale v1.2- Global Health Survey Short Form 10. High scores reflect better functioning. To find the total raw score for these scales with all questions answered, sum the values of the response to each question for a given respondent.
Time frame: Monthly 5 months
Patient Anxiety/Depression
Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) measurement of psychological distress in non-psychiatric patients.
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Time frame: Monthly 5 months
Impact of Pandemic and Health Related Quality of Life
COVID-19: Impact of the Pandemic and Health Related Quality Of Life (HRQOL) in Cancer Patients and Survivors
Time frame: Baseline then 3 months and 5 months from baseline
Cancer symptom severity
Patient reported outcomes collected in automated SCH system daily of cancer symptom severity on a scale of 0-10 with 0 being no pain and 10 being worst pain imaginable. Description of symptom severity over time will be reported
Time frame: Daily for 5 months.