New patient education module added to Epic platform

After two years of focused effort, ASTRO is excited to share that in a collaborative effort with Epic, we rolled out a module this past May via the Epic platform, to assist patients recently diagnosed with prostate cancer. Spearheaded by the Communications Committee alongside the Epic radiation oncology working group, a prostate cancer module was developed for patients diagnosed with intact prostate cancer. The module has been designed for physicians to provide access to ASTRO-developed content to patients along their cancer journey via the MyChart patient portal. The physicians can be sure their patients have access to accurate and up-to-date information, with automatic notifications to complete tasks via the MyChart Care Companion application. This feature prompts users to explore and read content pertaining to their diagnosis in a “just in time” format, aligned with critical junctures in the radiation treatment process. The goal of this newly organized format is to give patients information relevant to where they are in the treatment journey rather than overwhelming them with cancer information at the start of their treatment plan. Specifically, via RTAnswers, content has been created to correspond with four phases of care in the patient experience: before the initial referral/consult, before the CT sim, at the first on-treatment visit (OTV), and the first follow-up after completing treatment.

What this means for you

As many of you are users of Epic, we encourage you to find out from your administrator how you can access this new feature for prostate cancer and optimize the information. While there is no extra cost to the feature, someone with an administrator role needs to “turn on” the toggle to give access.

What this means for your patients

When a patient is diagnosed and is referred to radiation oncology, the physician selects the care plan via Epic and triggers its availability to the patient. Via the MyChart Care Companion, Epic will provide the patient with tasks to complete, which will include links to the RTAnswers website and the pages most relevant to them. For example, upon diagnosis and referral to radiation oncology, the patient will be given access to the pages outlining the information they may find helpful prior to their consultation with the radiation oncology team. The patient will have this facilitated opportunity to be more informed before their first visit and also have other resources that are more focused than a standard google search. If a topic piques their interest, they have the option to view other RTAnswers content, widening the exposure of this resource.

Looking ahead, ASTRO intends to take this module and improve it based on user feedback. Epic will be at the Annual Meeting at the ASTRO Resource Center and in the Early Career and Mentoring Lounge to provide demos for attendees. Look for the Annual Meeting Guide out in September for more details on these demos.

More broadly, this module will serve as a prototype for other types of cancers, with breast cancer as the next disease site in the pipeline, slated for early 2025. The long-term goal is for all disease sites to have organized radiation oncology patient education materials by phase with two care plans released each year.

Visit www.astro.org/ProviderResources to access the worksheet for physicians to provide to your Epic administrators to ensure this tool is available.