DigiPall; a Randomized Controlled Trial of Digital Patient Reported Outcome and Biomarker Monitoring in Palliative Care

The aim of this study is to test the effect of a remote symptom and digital biomarker monitoring system on unplanned hospital readmissions, quality of life and sense of security in advanced cancer patients and patients with severe illnesses in palliative care.

Patients with cancer or other life-threatening illnesses are often burdened with pain and other distressing symptoms. Palliative care is an approach to prevent and relief suffering by means of early identification, assessment and treatment of these symptoms with the overall aim to improve quality of life of patients.

Palliative care wards are established in larger hospitals in Switzerland and provide short-term acute treatment of patients with incurable diseases. More than half of the patients are discharged home. However, unplanned rehospitalisations and emergency visits unfortunately occur frequently. Unplanned rehospitalisations are burdensome for the patient and caregiver and they are associated with higher costs. Up to 50% of unplanned rehospitalisations or hospital readmissions are deemed avoidable.

An unplanned hospital readmission within a specified time frame is an often applied quality benchmark in health care. When patients are discharged from specific palliative care wards, a good interprofessional outpatient or home care service has been most effective. However, close monitoring through home care teams is time consuming, costly, hindered by long distances and home care teams are not available everywhere. Furthermore, in many European countries primary care practices are rarified and reimbursement of home visits are insufficient. Therefore, new and innovative approaches for monitoring of this patient group are needed, especially in view of a growing number of patients and a decreasing number of care givers.

In the digital era self tracking is becoming more fashionable and daily screen-time is increasing. Concerning symptoms and well-being, patients monitoring themselves is the best option, because only they can adequately determine how they feel. Performance status and its deterioration can be remotely assessed by wearables. Mobile health technology is an easy and feasible way to monitor activity and health status.