Behavioral Economic Strategies to Improve PRO Adherence (BEST-PRO)

The main purpose of this research study is to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of patient- and nurse-directed strategies across in-clinic and remote patient reported outcome (PRO) monitoring settings, using a three-arm pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial. Additionally, the goal is to evaluate moderators of implementation effects on PRO monitoring.

Eligible patients will be randomized independently to: (1) usual practice (i.e., encounter-based PRO administration via patient portal or tablet); (2) encounter-based PRO monitoring with patient reminders and nurse alerts; or (3) remote PRO monitoring with patient reminders and nurse alerts. The investigators hypothesize that nudges to patients and alerts to nurses will improve patient-level PRO completion and clinician-level PRO engagement.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Cancer
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Encounter-based PRO monitoring; Other: Remote PRO monitoring

Detailed Description

Routine PRO monitoring is an evidence-based practice that improves patient outcomes. Patients with cancer commonly experience symptoms which go unrecognized by clinical teams up to half of the time. PROs are a powerful tool to bridge this gap, amplifying the patient experience and improving communication between patients and clinicians. A seminal clinical trial was conducted in which weekly PRO symptom assessments with care team alerts led to reduced care utilization, improved quality of life, and lengthened overall survival among patients receiving active treatment for advanced solid tumors. Subsequent randomized trials have corroborated the quality of life and survival advantages of PRO monitoring in other cancer populations and practice settings.

Real-world adherence to PRO monitoring is lower than in seminal clinical trials, with potential racial/ethnic disparities. Multilevel barriers to PRO implementation exist at the patient, clinician, practice, and system levels. While patient adherence to PRO monitoring in seminal trials ranged from 70 to 90 percent, real-world adherence is much lower and more variable. Our preliminary research demonstrates that in a large, multi-site rollout of PRO monitoring, mean patient-level adherence was less than 50 percent. Moreover, compared to non-Hispanic White patients, Black and Hispanic patients were 9% and 4% less likely to complete PRO questionnaires, respectively, but more likely to report more severe symptoms. These results highlight that historically marginalized subgroups may benefit less from current methods of PRO administration, potentially reinforcing existing disparities in symptom management if not remediated.

This will be the first study to apply behavioral economic strategies to align clinicians and patients in achieving sustained patient-level PRO adherence, and addresses limitations of current PRO approaches. Current approaches to PRO collection are limited by: (1) suboptimal clinician engagement, (2) encounter-based assessments which preclude longitudinal monitoring of PROs outside of the clinic, and (3) insufficient automated effectors actively linking reported symptoms with clinical response. This proposal addresses these limitations by employing behavioral strategies directly targeting clinician engagement, utilizing novel electronic remote monitoring methods to maximize real-time PRO capture, and linking these with pathway-driven automated effectors.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 476
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • New Jersey
    • Plainsboro, New Jersey, United States, 08536
      • Penn Medicine Princeton Health
  • Pennsylvania
    • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 19104
      • Abramson Cancer Center

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Patients must initiate a new line of systemic cancer therapy (i.e., intravenous chemotherapy or immunotherapy) at a participating Implementation Lab site

Exclusion Criteria:

- Patient opts out of pragmatic research

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Usual practice; This arm will consist of encounter-based PRO monitoring, in which patients have an opportunity to complete PRO questionnaires via patient portal in advance of clinical encounters or via tablet during clinical encounters. While clinicians will be encouraged to view and discuss PROs with patients during clinical encounters, they will not be prompted to do so in real-time, nor will there be alerts for escalating symptoms.
Experimental: Encounter-based PRO monitoring; Encounter-based PRO monitoring (usual practice) plus patient reminders and triage nurse alerts	Other: Encounter-based PRO monitoring; This arm consists of usual practice plus the addition of patient reminders to complete PRO questionnaires and triage nurse alerts for severe symptoms. Patient reminders will be operationalized through the Epic patient portal. Triage nurse alerts will be routed to Epic symptom management pools in response to a patient reporting moderate or severe symptoms. Patients will have the opportunity to decline or opt-out of triage nurse support. Clinical interventions stemming from triage nurse alerts will be up to the discretion of clinical teams - i.e., clinical responses will be neither prescriptive nor mandatory. Notably, the entry point for triage nurse alerts (i.e., Epic symptom management pools), as well as resultant clinical responses, are existing standard operating procedures/practices for patients reporting symptoms by phone.
Experimental: Remote PRO monitoring; Remote PRO monitoring plus patient reminders and triage nurse alerts	Other: Remote PRO monitoring; This arm will consist of weekly PRO questionnaires administered via the patient portal, de-linked from clinical encounters. Patient reminders will be operationalized through the Epic patient portal. Triage nurse alerts will be routed to Epic symptom management pools in response to a patient reporting moderate or severe symptoms. Patients will have the opportunity to decline or opt-out of triage nurse support. Clinical interventions stemming from triage nurse alerts will be up to the discretion of clinical teams - i.e., clinical responses will be neither prescriptive nor mandatory. Notably, the entry point for triage nurse alerts (i.e., Epic symptom management pools), as well as resultant clinical responses, are existing standard operating procedures/practices for patients reporting symptoms by phone.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
PRO Adherence	The primary outcome will be PRO adherence, measured at the patient level as the proportion of expected PRO questionnaires completed per patient.	3 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Percent of Patients With at Least One Note Documenting PROs During Study Period		3 months
Percent of Patients With at Least One Note Documenting PROs Per Month During Study Period		3 months
Time to Alert Response (for Arms 2 and 3 Only)		3 months
Percent of Patients Who Trigger an Alert for Triage Nurses (for Arms 2 and 3 Only)		3 months
Acute Care Utilization	Percent of patients with an emergency department visit or hospitalization	3 months
Treatment Modifications	Percent of patients with a treatment modification	3 months
Duration of Therapy	Average duration of therapy during the study period	3 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Abramson Cancer Center at Penn Medicine
• Collaborators: National Cancer Institute (NCI)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Samuel Takvorian, MD, University of Pennsylvania; Principal Investigator: Ravi Parikh, MD, University of Pennsylvania; Emory University

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Basch E, Deal AM, Dueck AC, Scher HI, Kris MG, Hudis C, Schrag D. Overall Survival Results of a Trial Assessing Patient-Reported Outcomes for Symptom Monitoring During Routine Cancer Treatment. JAMA. 2017 Jul 11;318(2):197-198. doi: 10.1001/jama.2017.7156.
• Basch E, Deal AM, Kris MG, Scher HI, Hudis CA, Sabbatini P, Rogak L, Bennett AV, Dueck AC, Atkinson TM, Chou JF, Dulko D, Sit L, Barz A, Novotny P, Fruscione M, Sloan JA, Schrag D. Symptom Monitoring With Patient-Reported Outcomes During Routine Cancer Treatment: A Randomized Controlled Trial. J Clin Oncol. 2016 Feb 20;34(6):557-65. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2015.63.0830. Epub 2015 Dec 7.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): December 4, 2023
• Primary Completion (Actual): June 4, 2024
• Study Completion (Actual): September 4, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: August 22, 2023
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 24, 2023
• First Posted (Actual): August 28, 2023

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): December 29, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 9, 2025
• Last Verified: September 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Neoplasms
• Other Study ID Numbers: UPCC 34923 (University of Pennsylvania Clinical Trials Scientific Review and Monitoring Committee); P50CA244690 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract); 852748 (Other Identifier: University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No