Feasibility Study on Development of a Collaborative Monitoring System between a Hospital and Community Pharmacy Using...

We developed a symptom monitoring system that facilitates collaborations among physicians, hospital pharmacists, and community pharmacists using an electronic Patient-Reported Outcome (ePRO) application. The present study investigated the feasibility and acceptability of this system. Before and after the introduction of the system, participants completed a questionnaire assessing the burden, anxiety, and satisfaction using a 0-10 numeric rating scale. The rate of application input implementation, the number of times alert and free messages sent by patients, adherence, the incidence of adverse events (AEs), and admission due to AEs were assessed as secondary endpoints. Twenty-one patients with breast cancer initiating abemaciclib (300 mg/d), 10 community pharmacists, and 5 physicians participated in this study. Patients reported a reduced burden in both explaining their symptoms and having their symptoms confirmed (p<0.005), as well as a decrease in anxiety related to treatment (p<0.001). Healthcare professionals reported a reduced burden in symptom monitoring (p<0.05), and also experienced reduced anxiety about not knowing the status of patients (p<0.05). The rate of application input implementation was 94.3%. The total numbers of alert and free messages sent were 316 and 426, respectively. The median medication adherence rate based on pill counts and the medication possession ratio were 94.7% and 0.97, respectively. The rate of grade ≥2 diarrhea was 80.9%, with no emergency admissions due to AEs. The implementation of application input was well accepted and participants actively engaged with it. These results warrant further confirmation in large-scale studies.