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Patient-reported outcome measures, or PROMs, ask patients how they feel and what activities they can do in daily life. Patients receiving cancer treatment, such as chemotherapy, often have side effects. PROMs can help cancer centers know if patients are getting high-quality care that helps manage their side effects.

In this study, the research team wanted to

• Learn from patients and clinicians, like doctors and nurses, what side effects are important to track during chemotherapy
• Create PROMs that can measure important side effects of chemotherapy

The research team also wanted to test the PROMs to see

• If patients find them easy to complete
• If the PROMs can detect differences in how well cancer centers control patients' treatment side effects

According to the World Health Organization, palliative care is "an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psycho-social and spiritual." The goal of the study was to generate comparative effectiveness research evidence to support the delivery of coordinated, community-based palliative care that effectively implements care plans consistent with the goals and preferences of older adults with advanced illness and their caregivers.

This study included a pragmatic, two-arm, multi-site randomized controlled trial of older adults (50+ years) with either poor prognosis cancer or end-stage organ failure who were recruited during an emergency department (ED) visit, along with their informal caregivers, to compare nurse-led telephonic case management to facilitated, outpatient specialty palliative care on: 1) quality of life in patients, 2) loneliness, 3) healthcare use in the 12 months following enrollment, 4) symptom burden, 5) caregiver strain, 6) caregiver quality of life, and 7) bereavement.