Telenursing in colorectal cancer patient follow-up and treatment assessment: A mixed methods evaluation study

The incidence of colorectal cancer cases in the Portuguese Institute of Oncology of Porto created the need of a telenursing program in the Gastro-Intestinal Cancer Unit. After staging, treatment may involve surgery radio and chemotherapy (either oral or IV). Patients with no treatment after surgery are scheduled for medical exams every 3 months in the first 2 years. Patients on chemotherapy need to be compliant and to have a close monitoring of adverse events. The GI Cancer Unit uses a telenursing information system to help assess colorectal cancer patients´ follow-up after surgery, medical treatment compliance and adverse events. A mixed-methods evaluation was done to a) describe the target population, b) detect problems in the telenursing information system, and c) suggest changes to meet users´ requirements. From 181 outbound phone calls, representing 67 patients (49 in treatment and 18 in follow-up), patients´ main characteristics were extracted and system´s problems were identified by the intervening nurses. Recommendations will be useful for a further development of the system.