Chemotherapy Care Companion: A Remote Patient Monitoring Program — [PODCAST] EP 90

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Ochsner Health, Ochsner Cancer Institute in Louisiana implemented a program—Chemotherapy Care Companion—to identify and meet oncology patients’ needs in real time. By remotely monitoring those on intravenous or oral anti-cancer treatment, providers can discover and address the issues patients may experience during and after treatment appointments, including fluctuations in vitals. Since implementation, Chemotherapy Care Companion has decreased patients’ healthcare costs by preventing emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations and improved their overall satisfaction.

Guest:

Erin Pierce, MSN, APRN, FNP-C
Nurse Practitioner
Ochsner Health, Ochsner Cancer Institute

“[Chemotherapy Care Companion] has really given me the ability to connect better with patients…and really get a better understanding of what they’re going through at home.”

Resources:

• Chemotherapy Care Companion: An Oncology Remote Patient Monitoring Program
• 2022 ACCC Innovator Award Details
• ACCC 39th National Oncology Conference
• Telehealth Success Stories: Remote Symptom Monitoring Using Patient Reported Outcomes
• Remote Home Monitoring of Patients with Cancer During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This podcast is part of a special series on the 2022 ACCC Innovator Award winners. For a deeper dive into this content, visit ACCC’s Innovator Award website.

Transcript

CANCER BUZZ: Welcome back to CANCER BUZZ. I'm your host Summer Johnson. On today's mini episode, a remote patient monitoring program to identify and meet patients' needs in real time. Since 2011, the ACCC Innovator Awards have recognized ACCC member programs, delivering creative and cost effective solutions to patient center care. This episode is part of a CANCER BUZZ series highlighting the 2022 Innovator Award winners Ochsner Health, Ochsner Cancer Institute in New Orleans provides several devices, such as a digital scale, blood pressure cuff and thermometer to patients tracking their vitals and symptoms that are then uploaded into the cancer Institute's electronic health record.

The program is called Chemotherapy Care Companion and has successfully reduced the number of ED visits and hospitalizations for oncology patients, therefore decreasing patient's healthcare costs. Erin Pierce is a Nurse Practitioner at Ochsner and Advanced Practice Provider in the Chemotherapy Care Companion program.

Erin Pierce, MSN, APRN, FNP-C: This is something that had been in the making and that we just realized that when taking care of our cancer patients, we needed to offer more and know what was going on more with them. We were concerned about the fact that, you know, sometimes we go weeks without seeing patients and we're like, what's going on in the interim that they may not necessarily be telling us

CANCER BUZZ: Erin, when weeks go by between appointments? What are some of the things that are happening at home that they may not be telling you?

Erin Pierce, MSN, APRN, FNP-C: The things of course we're most concerned about is, is, are they becoming neutropenic? Are they developing some type of infection? Are they having uncontrolled nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and having these symptoms in suffering at home in silence, this really has been able to allow us to help identify some of those issues and help mitigate them before they come into a big issue.

CANCER BUZZ: Would you walk us through what that looks like for the patients as they get connected with the program?

Erin Pierce, MSN, APRN, FNP-C: Any patient that is receiving some type of either Chemotherapy, immunotherapy or oral targeted therapy is offered chemo care Companion. What it is is free of charge, where they provide a blood pressure, cuff, a thermometer and a scale. And this information that they take at home is electronically wired through our system through epic and then gives alerts to us. If it's above and below thresholds,

CANCER BUZZ: Do the patients have to pay anything to go through the program? And then do you recommend every single chemotherapy patient participate?

Erin Pierce, MSN, APRN, FNP-C: So good question. This is free of charge for our patients. We've been able to obtain grant funding through this. And so by that, we're able to offer it to every patient who is getting some type of cancer treatment. We offer it to them. There are some people who decline, but we at least get to offer it to them.

CANCER BUZZ: And how do you help them remember to do this?

Erin Pierce, MSN, APRN, FNP-C: So patients are actually pretty compliant with it. We have people that, you know, who are super engaged. We have people who are not as engaged, but what they're doing is they do get alerts twice a day to remind them about doing so, and then they can also, additionally, do ad hoc entries as much as they want.

CANCER BUZZ: Are you tracking ER visits and outcomes so far?

Erin Pierce, MSN, APRN, FNP-C: Yes. We have been tracking ER, visits and emissions. In fact, our preliminary data that we looked at says that there's a 33% decrease in admissions and ER, visits for those who are active on the program compared to those oncology patients who are not,

CANCER BUZZ: What kind of impact has this program had on your own personal day?

Erin Pierce, MSN, APRN, FNP-C: I think it's really given me the ability to connect better with patients. There's some people who are always gonna tell you everything and report every little thing. And then you have some people who you really have to tug at information, cuz they're scared about, you know, making a dose reduction if you're gonna change some of their treatment plan and they just want the best thing that's available for them. So I think this has been able to help me relate better to my patients and really get a better understanding of what they're going through at home.

CANCER BUZZ: Erin, how are the patients responding to the program and has that changed how they feel about their cancer treatment journey?

Erin Pierce, MSN, APRN, FNP-C: I think this has been a huge patient satisfaction win for us. Patients feel like they're more engaged in their care. They're actually getting more touch points with providers because we're reaching out to them. If we're concerned about things and overall they're better quality of improvement in their symptoms from their cancer. So I definitely think it has improved the cancer experience for them.

CANCER BUZZ: If you'd like to learn more about Chemotherapy Care Companion, make plans to join your colleagues at the upcoming annual ACCC 39th National Oncology Conference. That's October 12th through the 14th in West Palm Beach, FL. There's more information about the conference and a link to register in the show notes. Until next time for the CANCER BUZZ team, this is Summer Johnson.

CANCER BUZZ is a resource of the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC).