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Editorial
. 2024 Oct;110(5):304-308.
doi: 10.1177/03008916241248007. Epub 2024 Apr 27.

PROACT 2.0: A new open-source tool to improve patient-doctor communication in clinical trials

Luca Agnelli  1   2 , Andrea Villa  2 , Fouziah Butt  3 , Matteo Duca  2 , Alessandro Guidi  1 , Marcello Carapezza  2 , Michele Addante  2 , Gaetano Lenoci  2 , Paul O'Regan  3 , Laura Russo  2   4 , Sara Cresta  2 , Alessandra Castano  2 , Elisabella Ebrahem  2 , Sara Alfieri  5 , Akshita Patil  3 , Louise Carter  6 , Caroline Dive  3 , Filippo Guglielmo De Braud  2 , Silvia Damian  2
Affiliations
Editorial

PROACT 2.0: A new open-source tool to improve patient-doctor communication in clinical trials

Luca Agnelli et al. Tumori. 2024 Oct.

Abstract

The use of Digital Healthcare Products is leading to significant improvements in clinical practice. Herein, we discuss the development of PROACT 2.0 (Patient Reported Opinions About Clinical Tolerability v2.0), a novel open-source mobile and web application developed at Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale Tumori in Milan. It was developed in collaboration with The Christie, Manchester, in the context of work package 2 of the UpSMART Accelerator project, involving a consortium of referral cancer centers from the UK, Spain and Italy. PROACT 2.0 enhances communication between patients and healthcare providers in cancer clinical trials, allowing patients to report adverse events and side effects, and healthcare teams to collect valuable patient-reported outcome measures for treatment management. PROACT 2.0 supports text, audio, and video messaging, offering a secure, non-urgent communication channel that integrates with, or replaces, traditional methods. Its user-friendly and multilingual interface provides a new route for patient engagement and streamlines the handling of logistical information. Positive feedback from initial testing warrants future enhancements for broader applicability in cancer research and treatment.

Keywords: clinical trial; communication; digital health; hematology-oncology; patient care; research.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
PROACT 2.0 functional architecture in the context of clinical studies. The architecture describes the parallel use of PROACT 2.0 in different institutions, among which studies can be shared when necessary (exemplarly, Study 1).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
A. Exemplar screenshot of a hypothetical conversation in the mobile app (Italian language interface). B. Exemplar screenshot of the interface to add feeling icons in the mobile app (Italian language interface). C. Exemplar screenshot of the web version of the Analyst Console (English language interface), showing how the medical team members can add analyst tags to any message.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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