Patient-reported outcomes and psycho-oncological screening in hematology: a practical example of routine electronic monitoring

Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) have gained increasing importance in oncology. PROs can supplement medical treatment with important information about the patient's quality of life (QoL), which is typically assessed using standardized questionnaires. PROs capture the symptomatology and functional impairments as perceived by the patient without further interpretation by another party. In this article, we describe how routinely assessed electronic PROs (ePROs) at the outpatient unit of the Department of Hematology Innsbruck complement the Austrian Myeloma Registry (AMR) and clinical routine. There is a broad body of literature showing that ePRO assessments can supplement patient-physician contact and help focus communication on clinically relevant issues that matter for the patient. Based on ePRO results, physicians can initiate clinical action such as referring patients to psycho-oncological treatment. Electronic PRO assessments might facilitate communication between healthcare providers among themselves but also between healthcare providers and patients, and make it possible to incorporate the patients' point of view into treatment in a standardized way. The example depicted herein demonstrates how ePRO assessments can be integrated and used in routine monitoring and for psycho-oncological screening.