Development and Testing of Electronic Patient-Reported Outcome System “Health – Electronic Self-Assessment” (HESA) for Monitoring the Health Status of Patients with Hematologic Malignancies Based on Their Quality-of-Life Data

BACKGROUND. Over the past years, digital technologies have been increasingly used worldwide for monitoring patient-reported assessment data in real-world clinical practice. Electronic systems allow to automatically assess a patient’s perception of disease and therapy in a convenient mode, remotely, and with obvious savings in time and resources. AIM. To develop and test the domestic electronic system for monitoring the health status of patients with hematologic malignancies based on their quality-of-life data. MATERIALS & METHODS. At the first stage, the electronic system was developed on the basis of a secure internet resource using two special questionnaires HM-PRO and HADS. Patients with hematologic tumors completed electronic questionnaires on admission to the hospital, after treatment, and remotely at different times after discharge. The data was processed by descriptive statistics. RESULTS. The interactive electronic system “Health – Electronic Self-Assessment” (HESA) was developed so that a graphic representation of the patient-reported real-time questionnaire data is provided for both patients and doctors. The testing of HESA included 115 patients (the mean age of 44 years; 63 women) with various hematologic tumors treated with high-technology medical services. Half of the patients completed the questionnaires remotely at different times after hospital discharge. Using HESA, clinicians were able to remotely monitor the changes in various quality-of-life aspects and psychological issues relying on diagrams, summary results, and patients’ comments. CONCLUSION. The first domestic electronic system HESA was developed for monitoring the health status of oncohematologic patients based on their quality-of-life data. We have shown that HESA can well be regarded as a valuable tool to inform hematologists on the state of their patients during hospitalization and most importantly during remote follow-up after discharge. It can contribute to further promotion of the patient-oriented approach in medicine and improvement of medical care quality for one of the most challenging categories of oncohematologic patients.