Implementing ePROM in specialist palliative home care: the professionals’ perspective – a mixed-methods study

BACKGROUND: Over the last decades, patient-reported outcome measures (PROM) have been developed for a better understanding of patient needs. The Integrated Palliative Care Outcome Scale (IPOS) is an internationally recommended PROM in palliative care. The validated electronic version of IPOS (eIPOS) was implemented in four German specialist palliative home care (SPHC) teams for use in everyday clinical practice. Patients reported symptoms and concerns via eIPOS, which were transmitted directly to the electronic patient record of the respective SPHC team. OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to describe and explore the health care professionals’ (HCPs’) experiences regarding acceptance and use of eIPOS in clinical practice in SPHC. DESIGN: The mixed-methods sequential explanatory design comprised an anonymized quantitative online survey followed by qualitative focus groups. METHODS: The online survey asked in both closed and open questions for HCP’s experience with eIPOS. Ambiguous results from the survey were discussed in two focus groups. Survey data were analysed with descriptive and univariable statistics, and the framework approach was used for qualitative data. In a further step, we conducted integrated analysis of quantitative and qualitative results using joint displays. RESULTS: All HCPs of the four SPHC teams (n = 52) were invited to participate. HCPs participating in the survey (n = 32) and the focus groups (n = 7) saw potentials for implementing ePROM in palliative home care – as far as it is technically easy to handle and can be easily integrated into clinical practice. CONCLUSION: Successful use of ePROMs is affected by the possibility of easy integration into the teams’ different structures and processes and the HCPs’ perceptions of potentials regarding ePROM use in SPHC. REGISTRATION: The study is registered on clinicaltrials.org (NCT03879668).