Potential Technology Development for Palliative Care

Dear Editor:

Technology has widespread use in the general population and is increasingly used in healthcare for service delivery, health monitoring, transmission of health information, and clinical communication. In palliative care, there is interest in telemonitoring, digital communications, and mobile applications^1–3 for symptom palliation and end-of-life care. Podcasts and social media are used to provide palliative care education and social support. ⁴ Technology offers a unique opportunity to support patients with serious illness, their families, and clinicians with symptom assessment, self-management, and communication, among others.

Despite current uses in palliative care, we believe technology is underutilized and has great potential to improve the quality of palliative care and patient and family outcomes. Research is needed to understand benefits, risks, barriers, and facilitators to the adoption and use of technologies in palliative care. As an initial step toward this long-term goal, we conducted a brainstorming session with palliative care providers to identify promising ideas for the use of technology in palliative care.

The brainstorming session was led by a palliative care physician researcher (D.B.B.) and a technology-computing expert (S.C.). Palliative care providers (n = 24) included physicians, medical students and residents, clinical and research fellows, nurses, chaplains, social workers, and an art therapist from inpatient, outpatient, and community (i.e., hospice) settings. The leaders described the goals of the brainstorming session and then requested participants to write down technology solutions that they believed to be potentially beneficial for patients, families, or providers (10 minutes). Participants then assembled into groups of four to five people. Each group was given 15 minutes to discuss and list their ideas on poster paper. Each group presented their suggestions to the larger group for discussion and further idea generation. The authors assembled the final lists of ideas and, through a team-based analytic process, consolidated, defined, and refined the ideas.

The palliative care and technology ideas are described in Table 1. Participants identified current popular technologies (referring to platforms such as Match.com and Nextdoor) that could be applied to the interests and needs of palliative care patients and caregivers. They also suggested creating new smart and voice command technologies. There was interest in digitalizing (via apps or websites) well-known palliative care interventions such as dignity therapy and meditation. Tools and outlets through social media, networking programs, and coordinating centers for caregivers and family members were highlighted.

Expanding and studying technology applicability and effectiveness among patients with serious illness, their families, and caregivers have potential. We offer some ideas and suspect there are many more. There are opportunities for industry–academic partnerships to create and study these technologies.