PREPARES is helping South Australians with cancer stay connected to care during treatment

A South Aus­tralian pro­gram is help­ing peo­ple receiv­ing can­cer treat­ment feel more sup­port­ed through­out treat­ment and avoid unnec­es­sary hos­pi­tal visits. 

Since com­menc­ing at Flinders Med­ical Cen­tre in Sep­tem­ber 2024, PRE­PARES (Elec­tron­ic Patient REPort­ed Out­come MeAsures for REmote Symp­tom Mon­i­tor­ing) has helped patients stay con­nect­ed with their care team between appoint­ments through reg­u­lar dig­i­tal symp­tom mon­i­tor­ing using patient-report­ed out­come mea­sures (PROMs).

Patients enrolled in the PRE­PARES pro­gram com­plete a short week­ly online sur­vey about their symp­toms such as pain, nau­sea, sleep issues and mood. Respons­es are reviewed by health­care teams through a secure dig­i­tal plat­form. All respons­es are triaged and assessed, with per­son­alised fol­low up when symp­toms wors­en or addi­tion­al sup­port is need­ed. This helps clin­i­cians pro­vide time­ly care between appoint­ments and iden­ti­fy any con­cerns at an ear­li­er rate. 

To date, 160 patients have enrolled in the pro­gram. Ini­tial eval­u­a­tion shows strong patient sup­port, with 97 per cent say­ing the sys­tem was easy to use, 93 per cent report­ing it helped them feel more in con­trol of their care, and 89 per cent say­ing they would rec­om­mend the pro­gram to oth­ers. PRE­PARES par­tic­i­pants were around 10 per cent less like­ly to attend an emer­gency depart­ment or require hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion, high­light­ing the poten­tial for remote symp­tom mon­i­tor­ing to improve out­comes for patients whilst reduc­ing pres­sure on the health system. 

PRE­PARES is one exam­ple of how inno­v­a­tive mod­els of care help shape a more respon­sive and sus­tain­able approach to can­cer care in South Aus­tralia. It sup­ports SACCaN’s com­mit­ment to improv­ing care coor­di­na­tion, nav­i­ga­tion and equi­table access to can­cer care across South Aus­tralia. By help­ing patients stay con­nect­ed to their care team between appoint­ments, the pro­gram pro­vides anoth­er path­way for patients to access time­ly sup­port when they need it. 

As PRE­PARES expands, to oth­er met­ro­pol­i­tan hos­pi­tals and region­al areas it will explore how PROMs can be used in region­al South Aus­tralia. PRE­PARES will apply these learn­ings to reduce bar­ri­ers to care and ensure more South Aus­tralians can access more con­sis­tent can­cer care across South Australia.