Value in Health, the official journal of ISPOR- the professional society for health economics and outcomes research, announced today the publication of new research showing that systematic collection of patient-reported outcome measures in breast cancer care has a promising impact on patients, providers, and care processes/systems. The report, "Implementing Patient-Reported Outcome Measures in Clinical Breast Cancer Care: A Systematic Review," was published in the October 2019 issue of Value in Health.
In this systematic literature review, researchers screened a total of 2311 published articles, of which 34 eligible articles were ultimately included. The majority of studies described a promising effect of patient-reported outcome measures collection on patients (adherence, symptom distress, quality of life, acceptability, and satisfaction), providers (willingness to comply, clinical decision making, symptom management), and care process or system outcomes (referrals, patient-provider communication, hospital visits). A limited number of facilitators and barriers were identified, primarily of a technical and behavioral nature.
While patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are increasingly being collected and advocated in cancer care, reviews focusing on methods of PROM administration, specifically in breast cancer care, have not been previously published. Our review found that systematic PROM collection in routine breast cancer care has a promising impact on patients, providers, and care processes/systems. If routine PROM collection is to be implemented in clinical practice, we recommend a standardized PROM set because it is one of the requirements for benchmarking treatments and healthcare providers. It could also ultimately allow comparisons of breast cancer outcomes across countries. By doing so, a major step will have been taken toward value-based healthcare."
Jan A. Hazelzet, MD, PhD, Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Breast cancer is the most common cancer affecting women worldwide. "With survival rates for early-stage breast cancer patients continuing to improve, more attention must be paid to quality of life issues reported by patients themselves," added coauthor and Erasmus colleague, Arvind Oemrawsingh, MD, MHS. There is increasingly more focus being put on patient-reported outcome measures, as part of healthcare's shift towards a more value-based framework for quality of care improvement. Patient-reported outcomes are defined as feedback on a patient's health condition (ie, symptoms and quality of life) coming directly from the individual patient, thus without external interpretation. Measurement of these outcomes is based on self-completed questionnaires called patient-reported outcome measures, which are increasingly being collected and advocated in cancer care for aiding care management of the individual patient.
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