eSyM for Clinicians
What is eSyM?
eSyM is an electronic symptom management tool seamlessly integrated within Epic that allows patients to report their symptoms to their care teams.
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Clinicians can easily view patient-reported symptoms directly in their medical record.
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eSyM is designed to help care teams track and react to symptoms before they escalate, which may:
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improve symptom control and quality of life
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prevent ED visits & hospitalizations
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improve patient experience and satisfaction of care
What happens after a patient submits their symptoms via eSyM?
The goal of eSyM is to decrease hospitalizations
eSyM aims to improve symptom management
Increased patient engagement can lead to better patient outcomes, including enhanced quality of life
Symptom monitoring can decrease the need for readmission
Tracking patient symptoms improves communication and efficiency
Why use eSyM?
What happens after a patient uses eSyM?
Any time a patient submits an eSyM questionnaire, their symptom responses are visible in their medical record.
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If a patient reports a severe symptom (grade 3), the patient receives a prompt to contact their care team & an InBasket message is sent to the clinical teams eSyM Severe Symptom folder.
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Care teams are encouraged to use their clinical judgement when determining if follow-up is necessary.
How do I find eSyM responses?
Responses can be viewed in an individual patient's medical record or within Epic from the eSyM reports. For instructions on how to set up your eSyM dashboard and reports, please refer to the Clinical User Guide below.
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You can also use the eSyM smartphrases to quickly pull patient symptom data into a clinical note.
The eSyM smartphrases are:
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.eSyM
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.eSyMAll
How do I track an individual patient's eSyM responses?
You can view a complete list of all reported eSyM symptoms directly in a patient's chart within Synopsis or Snapshot.
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Clinicians are encouraged to review patient-reported symptom data before clinic visits to make appointments more efficient.
How do I monitor a panel of eSyM patients?
You can view easy-to-use eSyM reports to prioritize patient outreach and manage symptoms by accessing the eSyM dashboard in Epic.
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One recommended report for clinicians is the 'eSyM Weekly Report.' This report displays all patients who have responded to eSyM within the last 7 days using a color-coded display. It can be filtered by provider, severe symptoms, and more.​
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Does using eSyM increase workload or
call volume for clinical teams?
eSyM is intended to support the clinical workflow, not hinder it. eSyM usage has not been found to increase call volume- several clinics currently using the program receive 1-2 alerts per day and staff have reported they find the volume to be manageable.
Clinical teams are not required to respond to eSyM severe alerts and are encouraged to use their clinical judgement when viewing patient responses. If a patient reports a severe symptom, eSyM prompts the patient with instructions to call their care team for support. Patients also receive a disclaimer at program start and with every questionnaire reminding them that eSyM is not monitored 24/7.
Clinician User Guide
If you have additional questions, please view these user guides for set-up instructions and eSyM support.
eSyM for Medical Oncology
eSyM for Surgery