16 Clinical
Pharmacy Practice News • July 2020
Oncology
Tracking CINV Via Texts Cuts Admissions, Urgent Care
A
pharmacist-led remote monitoring program to track cancer patients experiencing chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) using text messaging resulted in a marked reduction in urgent care and emergency department (ED) visits, according to researchers at the University of Michigan. “We were very excited about this,” said lead study author Shannon Hough, PharmD, the pharmacy manager for
oncology clinical services at the university’s Rogel Cancer Center, in Ann Arbor. “When you’re looking to modify a metric like ED use, any movement improves patient outcomes and the overall quality of care we’re providing. We were thrilled to see that this intervention looks like it makes a difference in those outcomes.” During their pilot program, Dr. Hough and her colleagues sent text messages to nearly 400 chemotherapy patients
and intervened if patients reported severe symptoms, she reported at the 2020 virtual annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (abstract 2001). After eight months of the program, they found that combined hospitalization, ED visits and urgent care use were nearly halved in this population. Visits fell from 234 before the program started to 118 during the program (P=0.029).
Dr. Hough’s team started the program to reduce the number of patients seeking unplanned care, which often is related to nausea and vomiting. Patients at the main infusion center who were receiving chemotherapy agents likely to induce nausea and vomiting and given an NK-1 antagonist were asked to enroll in the program, which sent a daily text message for seven days after treatment. The text included questions based on
