Electronic Patient Reported Outcomes in Paediatric Oncology - Applying Mobile and Near Field Communication Technology

BACKGROUND Electronic Patient Reported Outcomes (ePRO) gathered using telemonitoring solutions might be a valuable source of information in rare cancer research. OBJECTIVES The objective of this paper was to develop a concept and implement a prototype for introducing ePRO into the existing neuroblastoma research network by applying Near Field Communication and mobile technology. METHODS For physicians, an application was developed for registering patients within the research network and providing patients with an ID card and a PIN for authentication when transmitting telemonitoring data to the Electronic Data Capture system OpenClinica. For patients, a previously developed telemonitoring system was extended by a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) interface for transmitting nine different health parameters and toxicities. RESULTS The concept was fully implemented on the front-end side. The developed application for physicians was prototypically implemented and the mobile application of the telemonitoring system was successfully connected to OpenClinica. Future work will focus on the implementation of the back-end features.