“I felt that I had some people who cared about me.” The impact of real-time remote patient monitoring on clinical practice: experiences of patients and clinicians participating in the eSMART study
Year: 2019
Session type: Poster / e-Poster / Silent Theatre session
Theme: Late breaking: Living with and beyond cancer
Abstract
Background
The eSMART study concluded in July 2019; it is one of the largest digital health and supportive care projects of its kind. A 5-year RCT recruited over 800 patients diagnosed with breast, colorectal or haematological cancers from n=12 clinical sites over n=5 countries (Austria, Greece, Ireland, Norway and the UK). Patients allocated to the intervention group used a real-time remote monitoring system called ASyMS to monitor and manage their chemotherapy-related symptoms during treatment and clinically driven algorithms alerted clinicians at their hospital of problematic symptoms. To understand the impact of using this technology and model of care on clinical practice, a series of interviews were completed across partner countries after sustained exposure to the intervention.
Method
Semi-structured 1-1 interviews with n=29 patients and n=18 clinicians from the 5 partner countries. Interviews were conducted in native language, transcribed and translated into English prior to analysis. A thematic analysis approach was adopted on the patient and clinician data sets prior to synthesis to develop insights and understandings of the impact of ASyMS on clinical practice.
Results
A main orienting theme, ‘ASyMS as a facilitator for change’ illustrated the positive impact of ASyMS on clinical practice across the partner countries. This orienting theme was supported by a number of sub-themes including reassurance, enhanced communication and relationships, normalising symptom experiences and developments to facilitate future deployment. There were commonalities in these themes across patients, clinicians and countries, although some specific in-country nuances were observed.
Conclusion
This large data set demonstrated that patients and clinicians were very responsive to the use of the ASyMS remote patient monitoring system deployed in chemotherapy care services across a range of countries and health service contexts. Understanding the experiences of people who have used this system is crucial to facilitate its successful future routine deployment, scalability and adoption.