Background: Value-based health care is increasingly used to facilitate a systematic approach during follow-up of patients. We developed Healthcare Monitor (HM): a structure of electronic patient-reported outcome measures (ePROs) for the longitudinal follow-up of head and neck cancer (HNC) patients. This study shares key lessons from implementation and seeks to provide insight into how patients experience HM.
Methods: We conducted a mixed-methods study using quantitative data from a nonrandomized retrospective survey of patients who received HM (n = 45) vs standard care (n = 46) and qualitative data from structured interviews (n = 15).
Results: Implementation of HM included significant challenges. Finding common ground among clinicians, administrators, and IT staff was most important. Qualitative findings suggest that patients experienced better doctor-patient communication and increased efficiency of the consultation using HM. Patients felt better prepared and experienced more focus on critical issues. Quantitative analysis did not show significant differences.
Conclusions: Integration of HM into routine care for HNC patients may have increased patient-centered care and facilitated screening of symptoms. However, future research is needed to analyze the potential benefits more extensively.
Keywords: head and neck cancer; patient-reported outcome measures; quality assurance; quality of life; value-based health care.
© 2020 The Authors. Head & Neck published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.