Emerging uses of patient generated health data in clinical research

The Value of Patient Reported Outcomes and Other Patient-Generated Health Data in Clinical Hematology

With cures and long-term survival rates increasing in hematologic malignancies, increased focus has been placed on gaining a better understanding of the patient experience from disease and treatment effects. This has been the basis for the utilization of patient reported outcomes (PRO) and other patient-generated health data (PGHD) in efforts to improve long-term health-related quality of life (HRQOL). This review will summarize the impact PROs have had on the evolving standard of care for patients with hematologic malignant conditions and will conclude with a template for the integration of PRO and PGHD to enhance the patient experience, using stem cell transplantation as an example.

Personalized home-based interval exercise training may improve cardiorespiratory fitness in cancer patients preparing to undergo hematopoietic cell transplantation

Impaired cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with inferior survival in patients preparing to undergo hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). Exercise training based on short, higher-intensity intervals has the potential to efficiently improve cardiorespiratory fitness. We studied home-based interval exercise training (IET) in 40 patients prior to autologous (N=20) or allogeneic (N=20) HCT. Each session consisted of 5, three-minute intervals of walking, jogging, or cycling at 65-95% maximal heart rate (MHR) with 3 minutes of low intensity exercise (<65% MHR) between intervals. Participants were asked to perform sessions at least 3 times weekly. The duration of the intervention was at least 6 weeks, depending on each patient’s scheduled transplantation date. Cardiorespiratory fitness was assessed from a peak oxygen consumption test (VO₂peak) and a 6 minute walk (6MWD) before and after the intervention period. For the autologous HCT cohort, improvements in VO₂peak (p=0.12) and 6MWD (p=0.19) were not statistically significant. For the allogeneic cohort, the median VO₂peak improvement was 3.7ml/kg*min (p=0.005) and the median 6MWD improvement was 34 meters (p=0.006). Home-based, interval exercise training can be performed prior to HCT and has the potential to improve cardiorespiratory fitness.

How to Develop an Electronic Clinical Endometriosis Research File Integrated in Clinical Practice

Endometriosis is associated with a range of pelvic-abdominal pain symptoms and infertility. It is a chronic disease that can have a significant impact on various aspects of women's lives, including their social and sexual relationships, work, and study. Despite several international guidelines on the management of endometriosis, there is a wide variety of clinical practice in the management of endometriosis, resulting in many women receiving delayed or suboptimal care. In this paper we discuss the possibilities and benefits of using electronic health records for clinical research in the field of endometriosis. The development of a wide range of clinical software for electronic patient records has made the registration of large datasets feasible and the integration of research files and clinical files possible. Integration of global standards on registration of endometriosis care in electronic health records could improve reporting of research data and facilitate the execution of large, multicentre randomized trials on the management of endometriosis. These highly needed trials could bring us the evidence needed for the optimisation of management of women with endometriosis.

Emerging uses of patient generated health data in clinical research

Recent advancements in consumer directed personal computing technology have led to the generation of biomedically-relevant data streams with potential health applications. This has catalyzed international interest in Patient Generated Health Data (PGHD), defined as "health-related data - including health history, symptoms, biometric data, treatment history, lifestyle choices, and other information-created, recorded, gathered, or inferred by or from patients or their designees (i.e. care partners or those who assist them) to help address a health concern."(Shapiro et al., 2012) PGHD offers several opportunities to improve the efficiency and output of clinical trials, particularly within oncology. These range from using PGHD to understand mechanisms of action of therapeutic strategies, to understanding and predicting treatment-related toxicity, to designing interventions to improve adherence and clinical outcomes. To facilitate the optimal use of PGHD, methodological research around considerations related to feasibility, validation, measure selection, and modeling of PGHD streams is needed. With successful integration, PGHD can catalyze the application of "big data" to cancer clinical research, creating both "n of 1" and population-level observations, and generating new insights into the nature of health and disease.