The integration of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) into cancer care is increasingly important, yet achieving standardised adoption across Australia remains challenging. PROs provide valuable insights and data for personalising treatment, early symptom management, and ongoing monitoring, all of which are crucial for understanding system performance and improving quality of life and outcomes for patients. This presentation will discuss two key initiatives in Australia that use PROs data to enhance cancer care: the Prostate Cancer Outcomes Registry (PCOR-ANZ) and the Real World Evidence Network for Cancer.
Clinical quality registries (CQRs) have demonstrated the value of integrating PROs into cancer care by collecting baseline and follow-up PROs data and providing benchmarked reporting. Since 2015, PCOR-ANZ has collected PROs from over 127,000 participants across 270+ hospitals and nearly 400 clinicians. This data has been instrumental in identifying trends in clinical practice, measuring treatment outcome variations, and assessing adherence to clinical guidelines and standards. PCOR-ANZ produces annual reports including benchmarked quality indicator reports at both hospital and clinician levels, public national performance summaries, consumer reports, and starting in 2024, a report on inequities and disparities. These reports are used to enhance the quality of prostate cancer care in Australia. As CQRs evolve to include real-time data access, on-demand reporting and improved data automation, they present an opportunity to drive transformation across cancer care.
The Real World Evidence Network for Cancer initiative is a collaboration between Movember and Cancer Australia and part of the Australian Cancer Plan. This initiative involves stakeholders from across the cancer sector, including clinical care delivery, CQRs, research, patient advocacy, private health and health departments. The goals of this initiative are to establish a core set of general PROs and experience measures for national use, and to create a national benchmarking platform for PROs. By standardising PROs collection and monitoring at a national level, this project aims to drive quality improvement and optimise cancer outcomes across Australia.