Congratulations to Dr Christine Koulis from the Cabrini Monash University Department of Surgery who has been awarded $90,000 from the Margaret Walkom Trust for the Colorectal Cancer Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) program. Senior Research Fellow and Project Co-ordinator, Dr Christine Koulis, will lead the Victorian-first program, which will allow for the electronic capture of PROMS through a cloud-based platform called ZEDOC by TheClinician. This platform will allow clinicians to assess how a treatment has, over time, affected a patient’s quality of life, symptoms and functional outcomes. The aim of this program is to provide clinicians with valuable insights regarding how a patient’s life is affected by bowel cancer treatment, allowing for improved health services and enabling patients to enjoy the best possible quality of life before, during and after treatment.

Patient-reported outcomes collected from this program will be integrated into the well-established Cabrini Monash Colorectal Neoplasia Database, a prospectively maintained clinician-led database. This invaluable information will significantly improve patient care by enhancing patient-clinician communication, clinical decision making and improving symptom monitoring, ultimately improving survival for colorectal cancer patients.

Dr Christine Koulis and the Cabrini Monash University Department of Surgery team, led by Professor Paul McMurrick, extend their thanks to Priyanka Willis of the Cabrini Foundation who helped support their application to the Margaret Walkom Trust.

To find out more about research at Cabrini, go to www.cabrini.com.au/research-and-education/