PROs

August 28, 2018: ADAPTABLE Patient-Reported Health Data Codes Now Available

Posted on by Karen Staman

The ADAPTABLE pragmatic trial relies on patients to report key information at baseline and throughout follow-up. To capture these data, ADAPTABLE investigators developed a LOINC (Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes) patient-reported item set, which is now publicly available.

The development of the item set is part of the ADAPTABLE Supplement, an initiative funded by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation to develop best practices for capturing patient-reported outcome data and optimal analytic approaches for using the data in a pragmatic clinical trial. Additional reference material can be found in the ADAPTABLE Supplement Roundtable Meeting summary, in a report describing the results of a literature review of data standards and metadata standards for variables of interest, and on GitHub. The project is expected to inform future efforts to integrate patient-reported data in the electronic health record and provide opportunities to streamline data for use in pragmatic trials. Information from the project is being added to the Living Textbook as it accumulates; learn more in the chapters on Using Electronic Health Record Data and Choosing and Specifying End Points and Outcomes.

ADAPTABLE (Aspirin Dosing: A Patient-Centric Trial Assessing Benefits and Long-Term Effectiveness) aims to identify the optimal dose of aspirin therapy for secondary prevention in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and is the first major randomized comparative effectiveness trial to be conducted by the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORnet).

March 14, 2018: Public Input on Patient-Reported Outcome Measures Due April 1

Posted on by Karen Staman

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is requesting information to help inform a competition in the fall to develop and implement user-friendly technical tools for the collection of patient-reported outcome (PRO) data. The AHRQ is interested in learning about experiences with physical function PRO measures that are currently in use in ambulatory care settings, including primary and secondary care, as well as the methods used to collect these data. The information will be used to select physical function measures for the competition, which aims to bolster collection and integration of PRO data in the electronic health record by developing and piloting new, user-friendly tools. Responses can be emailed to Janey.hsiao@ahrq.hhs.gov and are due April 1, 2018.

New White Paper from Collaboratory PRO Core on the Impact of Patient-Reported Outcomes on Clinical Practice

Posted on by Karen Staman

Patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures are often used in pragmatic clinical trials to assess endpoints that are meaningful to stakeholders. These measures may also support patient care, although there is mixed evidence about effects of PROs on (1) improved patient-provider communication, clinical decision-making, and patient satisfaction; (2) enhanced patient outcomes; and (3) helped ensure better quality of care from a healthcare systems perspective. In a new white paper from the Collaboratory Patient-Reported Outcomes Core, the available evidence in the literature is examined to determine when PROs have the potential to provide added value to patient care.

The full text of the white paper can be found here: Impact of Patient-Reported Outcomes on Clinical Practice_V1.0

Mobile Health (mHealth) Research Platform to Launch

Posted on by Gina Uhlenbrauck

In recent health information technology news, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), has received a 5-year National Institutes of Health award to support its launch of a cardiovascular mHealth platform. The research platform, to be named Health ePeople, will build on the successes of UCSF’s Health eHeart Study, which began in 2013. That study, with more than 30,000 participants worldwide, uses the power of mobile technologies to collect cardiovascular data and patient-reported outcomes (PROs) from study participants.

The Health ePeople platform will advance mHealth by providing researchers with easy access to a large cohort of volunteers, along with a quick, affordable means for collecting their health data through mobile and wireless technologies. Though the platform will not be ready to enroll new participants for several months, people who want to participate in the cohort can sign up through the Health eHeart Study website.

For information and short videos on mHealth technologies, visit the Living Textbook’s chapter on mHealth and PROs.

Study Shows Patient-Reported Outcomes Valid & Reliable for Adverse Events of Cancer Treatment

Posted on by Gina Uhlenbrauck

In a study recently published in JAMA Oncology, researchers found that patient reporting of adverse events of cancer treatment using a new scale gave valid and reliable assessments that correlated with standard measures of functioning and quality of life. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) developed a patient-reported outcome (PRO) version of its Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE), which is the standard system for reporting toxicities of cancer treatment in clinical trials. The PRO-CTCAE was then tested among more than 900 patients undergoing treatment at 9 cancer centers. As described in a commentary by Benjamin Movsas, MD, these results are encouraging for PROs to be integrated in informing treatment recommendations, symptom management, and even labeling decisions.

Read more about PROs in the Living Textbook chapter on this topic.

The National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORnet) Adopts Definitions for Information Provided by Patients

Posted on by Karen Staman

The NaTools for Researchtional Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORnet) Patient-Reported Outcomes (PRO) Task Force has released a new white paper that delineates definitions for data contributed by patients. They hope to facilitate the incorporation of information provided by patients across the networks and to maximize data sharing and interoperability by operationalizing the terms within PCORnet.

The following three terms were adopted to describe the patient-contributed data collected across PCORnet:

PATIENT-REPORTED OUTCOME (PRO): a report that comes directly from the patient about the status of a patient’s health condition without amendment or interpretation of the patient’s response by a clinician or anyone else.

PATIENT-CENTERED OUTCOMES: outcomes that matter to patients

PATIENT-GENERATED HEALTH DATA: health-related data (such as health history, symptoms, biometric data, treatment history, lifestyle choices, and other information) that are created, recorded, gathered, or inferred by or from patients or their designees (i.e., care partners or those who assist them) to help address a health concern. Patient-generated health data include patient-reported outcomes.

The white paper can be found under Patient-Reported Outcomes White Papers on the Tools for Research page on the living textbook, or accessed directly here (PDF).

Computer Adaptive Testing Approach to Patient-Reported Outcomes

Posted on by Gina Uhlenbrauck

Michael Bass and Maria Varela Diaz of the Department of Social Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, have kindly given the Living Textbook permission to post their presentation (link opens as a PDF) about how to use an application programming interface (API) to create a computer adaptive testing (CAT) program that integrates patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures with an institution’s electronic health record (EHR) system.

With a CAT approach, PRO assessment can cover a wide range of question/response items with increased precision. In their CAT application, the authors describe a clinical use case for a mobile health solution, using measures from the NIH-sponsored PRO Measurement Information System (PROMIS®) domain framework, in which a health assessment is issued by a physician, administered to a patient via phone, and then sent back to the EHR.

You can read more about CAT in the Patient-Reported Outcomes chapter of the Living Textbook.

Mobile Health (mHealth) and PROs

Posted on by Gina Uhlenbrauck

As the use of PROs in both research and routine patient care has grown, so has the use of mobile technologies (such as smartphones, tablet computers, and portable or wearable medical devices). These technologies, known collectively as “mobile health” AcademyHealth logoor “mHealth” devices present a wide array of challenges and opportunities for medical research. The links below provide access to a series of short video segments on mHealth technologies that were adapted from a larger web seminar sponsored by AcademyHealth and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and used here with kind permission from AcademyHealth: