Patient‐reported outcomes in Australian oncology: from emerging practice to system‐wide care

Patient-reported outcomes in Australian oncology: from emerging practice to system-wide careTranslating evidence into routine clinical practice is a persistent challenge in medicine.Patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures are tools that capture symptoms, function and quality of life directly from patients.Their regular collection and actioning has been shown to enhance quality of life, satisfaction with care and survival.[1][2][3] In cancer care, PROs represent a clear case where the evidence has emerged, but implementation has not kept pace.As cancer survival improves and more patients are managed across primary and specialist care, PROs are increasingly relevant to any clinician involved in the care of people living with cancer.Despite a broad evidence base, routine PRO use in Australia remains limited and inconsistent.The task ahead is implementation: embedding PROs into routine clinical workflows and providing the infrastructure to support real-time responses that actively inform care.Australia is laying the groundwork, reflected in a series of landmark developments.The Australian Cancer Plan aligns Australia with global calls to improve cancer outcomes and specifically calls for PROs to be embedded into national performance monitoring and reporting.4 The PanCancer Initiative is a partnership between Cancer Australia and Movember aiming to integrate patient-reported measures across the cancer sector. 5 The PROActive consensus meeting engaged consumers, clinicians and policymakers from across Australia to collectively identify priority areas for implementation.6 Together, these signal a national commitment to move PROs to the forefront of cancer care.