Mapping the Landscape of Digital Technologies in Oncology

This year’s ACCC 46th Annual Meeting & Cancer Center Business Summit included a session titled, “Digital Health Revolution.” We shared a summary of the comments from the panel that was assembled for the discussion, but there was also an introductory portion focused on navigating the available tools in digital health for oncology. An audience poll made clear what is top of mind for oncology care providers as they work to succeed in the transition to value-based care: patient engagement and analytics. Here is one of the questions from the poll was:

Yet with patient engagement, monitoring, and navigation top of mind, only 4% reported always using ePROs or another electronic mechanism to characterize the patient. 43% reported they always or oftentimes use education content embedded in the EHR to provide education to patients. 50% of the audience selected “software that also includes analytics capabilities for clinical, quality, and cost analytics” to best describe their expectations for a digital health solution.

These polls were an introduction to the recent collaborative study that was intended to help the authors develop a comprehensive diagram of the digital technology and tools that cancer care providers are using to advance value-based care in oncology. “Mapping the Landscape of Digital Technologies in Oncology,” aimed to “formally identify and catalogue the digital healthcare players and map the landscape of technology applications specific to value-based oncology care.” It’s clear that there are lots of digital tools hitting the market and it may be difficult to know what is right for your practice. While the study doesn’t offer conclusions, it does provide a framework to think about digital health as 6 functional domains: Electronic Medical Record (EMR), specific to oncology; Clinical, Quality & Cost Analytics; Practice Management; Clinical Support; Patient Engagement, Monitoring & Navigation; and Clinical Trials/Research.

As a panelist pointed out later in the session, technology solutions should be partners, not vendors, and practice transformation is an iterative, ongoing process. Finding a turnkey solution is probably not realistic, but many digital health technology solutions, like Navigating Cancer, are focused on improving cancer care with the help of technology and we work every day to better meet the needs of our providers and their patients.

If you’re interested in learning more about how we can help with patient engagement, patient monitoring, symptom management, and care management analytics – contact us today!

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