UC Irvine electronic patient-reported outcome tool reduces cancer care disparities

The chair of clinical pharmacy practice details how the organization got, for example, racial/ethnic minorities receiving chemotherapy two times higher likelihood in reporting pain compared with non-Hispanic whites.

Management of cancer patients' symptoms always has been a challenge for providers, especially among racial/ethnic minoritized (REM) populations that often face health disparities that might negatively impact their health outcomes.

THE PROBLEM

Hence, over the years many researchers have evaluated whether electronic tools can help facilitate early recognition of symptoms.

These studies, however, were:

• Mostly implemented in populations that are mostly non-Hispanic white.
• Seldom involved allied health professionals (such as pharmacists) as a resource for symptom management with electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePRO) results.
• Rarely integrated multilingual tools particularly important among REM.

"Early recognition of health issues by pharmacists often is impeded by patients' limited health literacy or poor communication due to language barriers, issues that are highly prevalent among REM," said Alexandre Chan, chair and professor of clinical pharmacy practice at UC Irvine.

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