Oncology Clinicians' Perspectives of a Remote Patient Monitoring Program: Multi-Modal Case Study Approach.

BACKGROUND

Remote patient monitoring (RPM) aims to improve patient access to care and communication with clinical providers. Overall, understanding the usability of RPM applications and their influence on clinical care workflows is limited from the perspectives of clinician end users at a cancer center in the Northeastern United States.

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to explore the usability and functionality of RPM and elicit the perceptions and experiences of oncology clinicians using RPM for oncology patients after hospital discharge.

METHODS

The sample included 30 of 98 clinicians (31% response rate) managing at least 5 patients in the RPM program and responding to the mHealth usability between March 2021 and October 2021. Overall, clinicians responded positively to the survey. Item responses with the highest proportion of disagreement were explored further. A nested sample of 5 clinicians who responded to the study survey (30% response rate) participated in interview sessions conducted from November 2021 to February 2022, averaging 60 minutes each.

RESULTS

Survey responses highlighted that RPM was easy to use and learn and verified symptom alerts during follow-up phone calls. Areas to improve identified practice changes from reporting RPM alerts through digital portals and its influence on clinicians' workload burden. Interview sessions revealed 3 main themes: clinician understanding and usability constraints, patient constraints, and suggestions for improving the program. Subthemes for each theme were explored, characterizing technical and functional limitations that could be addressed to enhance efficiency, workflow, and user experience.

CONCLUSIONS

Clinicians support the value of RPM for improving symptom management and engaging with providers. Improvements to address RPM challenges include functional changes to enhance the program's utility, such as input from patients about temporal changes in their symptoms and technical resources for home monitoring devices.