Monash University has tapped Adelaide-based healthcare-focused technology specialist Personify Care to power its symptom monitoring and care coordination clinical trial.
The trial, called the PROpatient project, aims to improve the health-related quality of life for patients with pancreatic and oesophagogastric cancer, and is funded by the Victorian Cancer Agency and overseen by the Monash University Cancer Research Program.
The project used Personify Care’s digital patient pathways mobile platform, which helps practices, hospitals and clinical teams monitor a patient’s recovery from surgery, after they leave hospital.
Personify Care developed the tech internally, using the platform to replace manual tasks like clinical and administrative protocols into a digital checklist for patients completed through a personal device.
The PROpatient trial is evaluating the benefits of embedding Patient Reported Outcomes (PROMs) into the nurse-led clinical workflow enabled by digital patient pathways. Patients would complete questionnaires via their mobile device to report any symptoms or problems remotely.
Participating patients of the whole trial will be recruited through Monash University’s Upper-Gastrointestinal Registry from across 12 participating sites – including Austin Health, Cabrini, Western Health and St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, among others.
“Personify Care has allowed easy two-way communication between our research team and our trial participants, improving our access to patient reported outcomes and making it simpler for participants to report symptoms,” Monash University mid-career research fellow for the Cancer Research Program Dr Liane Ioannou said.
Personify Care said the trial, by using its digital patient pathways platform, enables patients to become more engaged in their own healthcare needs, providing a mobile platform to report symptoms that may not have been flagged with the patient’s cancer care team.
Symptom monitoring is done by a nurse that’s part of the PROpatient program, who will communicate with the patient over the phone to provide expert information or support and coordinate care with relevant clinicians. The nurses also get alerts about patients with severe or worsening symptoms, where they can escalate care from experienced cancer nurse consultants.
Personify Care chief executive Ken Saman said, “We’re pleased to support researchers and healthcare teams developing new models of care based on connecting patient reported symptoms with their treating nurse in real time.”
“The use of digital patient pathways to embed PROMs for cancer patients into the clinical workflow across Victoria’s leading public and private participating sites is an exciting step forward.”Got a news tip for our journalists? Share it with us anonymously here.
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