There have been recent national calls to action to improve comprehensive cancer care through better integration of electronic health records (EHR). Leveraging the EHR could enable larger-scale and more systematic implementation of behavioral medicine assessments and interventions, including patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and other patient-generated health data (e.g., data from wearable devices) prevention efforts, supportive care, and other evidence-based behavioral interventions. In the context of cancer care, EHR integration may improve care coordination across specialties and the cancer trajectory as well as patient-provider communication and patient empowerment. This panel will bring together a multidisciplinary group of clinical researchers to share their experiences leading pioneering studies and initiatives to integrate behavioral medicine into the EHR in two different contexts: NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers and community oncology practices.

The first panelist will describe the development and pilot testing of an EHR-embedded supportive care tool that collects PROs and links responses to evidence-based algorithms for supportive care. The second will discuss a novel EHR clinical decision support tool to promote provider-patient communication about cardiovascular health in outpatient oncology settings. The third and fourth panelists will describe implementing a bilingual, EHR-integrated oncology symptom screening, including depression, across two large health systems.

This group of experts will discuss how they have integrated PROs and evidence-based behavioral care into EHR for symptom monitoring, intervention delivery, and prevention/surveillance efforts. Facilitated discussion will highlight cancer patient and provider perspectives on feasibility and acceptability, how to work with informaticists, clinicians, patients, healthcare administrators, and other interested parties to design and implement EHR-based systems, health equity considerations, and accessing EHR data for research and program evaluation. Panelists will also discuss unanticipated challenges and lessons learned in developing and deploying these systems in different contexts, as well as opportunities and insights about the future of EHR-integration for technology-supported cancer care.

Ultimately, our goal is for the audience to leave with a deeper understanding of how EHR can be effectively leveraged for cancer research and care across the cancer care trajectory.