Telephone Linked Care: An IT Enabled Integrated System for Cancer Symptom Relief

The purpose of this prospective trial is to test a daily telephone based automated symptom monitoring and response system to track and further treat unrelieved symptoms for patients living at home during chemotherapy treatment as compared with usual care which consists of patients calling their oncology provider for symptom concerns. For the intervention group, the monitoring system is paired with automated delivery of self-care suggestions tailored to the specific symptom profile the patient reported and also automatically 'alerts' the study oncology nurse practitioner about unrelieved symptoms. The nurse practitioner, utilizing national evidence based symptom guidelines for symptoms at moderate to severe levels calls the patient and further assesses and intensifies symptom treatment. The usual care group called the system daily and reported similar data but did not receive self-care coaching or notification of unrelieved symptoms to the study nurse practitioner. On every call, the usual care group was told to follow the standard procedure of calling their oncology providers for symptom concerns. The specific aims of the study are to test whether the symptom monitoring intervention reduces presence, severity and distress of 11 symptoms. The symptoms monitored in the project were nausea/vomiting, pain, sore mouth, numbness & tingling, diarrhea, trouble thinking, trouble sleeping, changes in appearance, depressed mood, anxiety, and fatigue. Secondary outcomes tested whether the intervention improved functional performance and decreased interference with activity when compared with the usual care attentional control group. Other aims compare self care strategies utilized and their perceived effectiveness and document patient satisfaction with the monitoring system.