IMPROVING PAIN MANAGEMENT IN CANCER CARE

DESCRIPTION: This application proposes development of the Pain Assessment and Management System for People with Cancer (PAMS-PC), a scientifically based assessment and intervention program. The PAMS-PC will utilize Interactive Voice Response (IVR) so that patients can indicate pain and symptom levels over the telephone and obtain tailored education and interventions for common cancer-related problems. An administrative application will be developed to permit oncologists to access patients' recorded pain/symptoms via customizable reports. This project addresses well-known obstacles to pain/symptom management of cancer patients. Despite high rates of pain among cancer patients, pain is insufficiently recognized and poorly documented by providers. As a result, sub-par treatment for cancer-related pain and symptoms is commonplace, despite advanced analgesic and other techniques for dealing with cancer pain/symptoms. Patient advocacy groups and regulatory agencies have called for "routinization" of the assessment of pain and other symptoms. Phase I will entail development and testing of an Alpha version of the assessment and development and acceptance testing of a demo version of the PAMS-PC IVR system. Phase II will involve confirmation of the psychometric properties of the assessment and field test of the entire system. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: NOT AVAILABLE