Recipients of ONS Foundation Funding

Donna L. Berry, PhD, RN, AOCN^®

"Computerized Symptom and Quality-of-Life Assessment in Clinical Practice," led by principal investigator Donna L. Berry, PhD, RN, AOCN^®, involved a multidisciplinary team developing and testing an innovative computerized symptom and quality-of-life (QOL) assessment tool. The University of Washington study, which began with production of a prototype framework for the tool, has led to the development of software with a useful clinical application.

The computerized patient assessment tool generates a graphic summary of symptom distress and/or troublesome QOL issues for use during initial and continuing consultation visits with a radiation oncology physician and nurse. The tool, based on input and testing from more than 100 patients with cancer receiving radiation, is available in a wireless, Web-based format.

"The tool allows nurses to approach their patients as individuals who experience cancer in all aspects of their lives," said Berry. "Too often we are faced with shrinking resources that remove opportunities for lengthy interpersonal interactions with patients," she said. "The patient's symptom and QOL experience, reported in a reliable and efficient method, is the essential basis for clinical assessment, diagnosis, and treatment plan."

Based on the study, Berry and her colleagues have concluded that a computerized assessment of cancer symptoms and QOL is technically feasible in an ambulatory cancer clinic. They concur that the ability to capture a quick (less than 10 minutes), easily interpreted illustration of a patient's symptom and QOL experience is a potentially useful adjunct to traditional face-to-face interviewing.

The study findings will be published soon. Berry reports that several sites within the University of Washington network and the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance are preparing to implement computerized assessment as part of routine practice. Data generated from computerized assessment at those sites will continue to build the research's database.

Berry pointed out that the study, made possible by an unrestricted grant from Ortho Biotech to CLIR, complemented the needs of research and clinical practice. "The support of the ONS Foundation made a difference in our research and in our clinical practice. The symptom research priority matched the clinical priority in our cancer care setting," Berry said.