The Symptom Monitor

The "Symptom Monitor" is a computer-automated system that utilizes the technologies of both the touch-tone telephone and the Internet to enable patients to provide home-based ratings of their symptoms between office visits with their oncologist and oncology nurses. This is used to allow the patient care team to easily, conveniently, and quickly assess and regularly monitor symptoms their patients are experiencing and how the symptoms are interfering with their daily activities in order to address them in a timely manner.

The Symptom Monitor utilizes a series of questions developed at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas known as "MDASI" (MD Anderson Symptom Inventory). The MDASI monitors 13 core symptoms that patients may experience. It also includes 6 questions about how those symptoms interfere with patients' daily activities. To view the MDASI, click here and go to the "Symptom Assessments Tools" link in the second paragraph, then to the MDASI link.

The Community Cancer Care Quality-of-Life team has completed testing of the symptom monitor, and it is now available for all Community Cancer Care oncology clinics to use.

For Published Information About the MDASI, Click on either of the two links below.

• M. D. Anderson Cancer Center - Department of Symptom Research
• Assessing symptom distress in cancer patients: the M.D. Anderson Symptom Inventory.

How Does the Symptom Monitor Work?

Patients can participate in one of two ways. The telephone component enables patients to receive scheduled phone calls each week from the Symptom Monitor at times they have chosen. Patients can also make calls to the Symptom Monitor themselves as often as they like. During these telephone calls, patients are asked a series of questions about the symptoms they are experiencing due to cancer treatment and how these symptoms are interfering with their daily activities. Patients report the answers to these questions using the keypad on their touch-tone telephone.

For patients who prefer to participate instead via the computer, they log onto a secure Internet site using a personal I.D. and password. They complete the same series of questions noted previously utilizing their computer or a computer located at their cancer clinic.

How Does the Cancer Care Team Use the Results?

For both telephone and Internet patient participation in the Symptom Monitor, a report will be generated and sent immediately via facsimile or email to the clinic where the patient is undergoing treatment. This will enable doctors and nurses to have symptom scores in a lab report format prior to patient appointments so that symptom changes can be addressed immediately. The patient's physician(s) will use these results to focus on specific problems the patient is having at the time of the office visit. The home-based nature of the symptom reporting system will also help to identify problems patients are having between office visits.

For More Information About the Symptom Monitor

If your hospital is not currently participating in the Symptom Monitor and would like more information, please contact Donna Butler, RN, BSN, OCN, at Community Cancer Care: 317-621-4305.

| Privacy Notice | About Us | Symptom Management | Our Physicians |
| Our Partner Hospitals | Cancer Registry | Quality of Life Foundation | Publications | Links | Contact Us |