Pilot Study of a Mobile Phone Chatbot for Medication Adherence and Toxicity Management Among Patients With GI Cancers on Capecitabine.

PURPOSE: Capecitabine is an oral chemotherapy used to treat many gastrointestinal cancers. Its complex dosing and narrow therapeutic index make medication adherence and toxicity management crucial for quality care. METHODS: We conducted a pilot study of PENNY-GI, a mobile phone text messaging-based chatbot that leverages algorithmic surveys and natural language processing to promote medication adherence and toxicity management among patients with gastrointestinal cancers on capecitabine. Eligibility initially included all capecitabine-containing regimens but was subsequently restricted to capecitabine monotherapy because of challenges in integrating PENNY-GI with radiation and intravenous chemotherapy schedules. We used design thinking principles and real-time data on safety, accuracy, and usefulness to make iterative refinements to PENNY-GI with the goal of minimizing the proportion of text messaging exchanges with incorrect medication or symptom management recommendations. All patients were invited to participate in structured exit interviews to provide feedback on PENNY-GI. RESULTS: We enrolled 40 patients (median age 64.5 years, 52.5% male, 62.5% White, 55.0% with colorectal cancer, 50.0% on capecitabine monotherapy). We identified 284 of 3,895 (7.3%) medication-related and 13 of 527 (2.5%) symptom-related text messaging exchanges with incorrect recommendations. In exit interviews with 24 patients, participants reported finding the medication reminders reliable and user-friendly, but the symptom management tool was too simplistic to be helpful. CONCLUSION: Although PENNY-GI provided accurate recommendations in >90% of text messaging exchanges, we identified multiple limitations with respect to the intervention's generalizability, usefulness, and scalability. Lessons from this pilot study should inform future efforts to develop and implement digital health interventions in oncology.

Opportunity Costs of Receiving Palliative Chemotherapy for Metastatic Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma.

PURPOSE: The median overall survival (OS) for metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (mPDAC) is < 1 year. Factors that contribute to quality of life during treatment are critical to quantify. One factor-time spent obtaining clinical services-is understudied. We quantified total outpatient time among patients with mPDAC receiving palliative systemic chemotherapy. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective analysis using four patient-level time measures calculated from the medical record of patients with mPDAC receiving 5-fluorouracil infusion, leucovorin, oxaliplatin, and irinotecan; gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel; or gemcitabine within the University of Pennsylvania Health System between January 1, 2011 and January 15, 2019. These included the total number of health care encounter days (any day with at least one visit) and total visit time. Total visit time represented the time spent receiving care (care time) plus time spent commuting and waiting for care (noncare time). We performed descriptive statistics on these outpatient time metrics and compared the number of encounter days to OS. RESULTS: A total of 362 patients were identified (median age, 65 years; 52% male; 78% white; 62% received gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel). Median OS was 230.5 days (7.6 months), with 79% of patients deceased at the end of follow-up. On average, patients had 22 health care encounter days, accounting for 10% of their total days survived. Median visit time was 4.6 hours, of which 2.5 hours was spent commuting or waiting for care. CONCLUSION: On average, patients receiving palliative chemotherapy for mPDAC spend 10% of survival time on outpatient health care. More than half of this time is spent commuting and waiting for care. These findings provide an important snapshot of the patient experience during ambulatory care, and efforts to enhance efficiency of care delivery may be warranted.