Rapid Utilization of Telehealth in a Comprehensive Cancer Center as a Response to COVID-19: Cross-Sectional Analysis

  1. Peter E Lonergan
  2. Samuel L Washington III
  3. Linda Branagan
  4. Nathaniel Gleason
  5. Raj S Pruthi
  6. Peter R Carroll
  7. Anobel Y Odisho

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Abstract

The emergence of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in March 2020 created unprecedented challenges in the provision of scheduled ambulatory cancer care. As a result, there has been a renewed focus on video-based telehealth consultations as a means to continue ambulatory care.

Objective

The aim of this study is to analyze the change in video visit volume at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Comprehensive Cancer Center in response to COVID-19 and compare patient demographics and appointment data from January 1, 2020, and in the 11 weeks after the transition to video visits.

Methods

Patient demographics and appointment data (dates, visit types, and departments) were extracted from the electronic health record reporting database. Video visits were performed using a HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)-compliant video conferencing platform with a pre-existing workflow.

Results

In 17 departments and divisions at the UCSF Cancer Center, 2284 video visits were performed in the 11 weeks before COVID-19 changes were implemented (mean 208, SD 75 per week) and 12,946 video visits were performed in the 11-week post–COVID-19 period (mean 1177, SD 120 per week). The proportion of video visits increased from 7%-18% to 54%-72%, between the pre– and post–COVID-19 periods without any disparity based on race/ethnicity, primary language, or payor.

Conclusions

In a remarkably brief period of time, we rapidly scaled the utilization of telehealth in response to COVID-19 and maintained access to complex oncologic care at a time of social distancing.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.10.20061259: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    There are a number of limitations of this study which need to be acknowledged. We did not evaluate the outcome of the video visits including patient satisfaction, qualitative or clinical outcomes. The study is from a single, large urban academic cancer center in the US and our findings may not be generalizable to other specialties, practices or locations. We believe this is the first report of the utilization of video visits in a Comprehensive Cancer Center in response to COVID-19 with a detailed description of the changing demographic of patients utilizing video visits before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.2196/19322
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.04.10.20061259v2 on medRxiv
  4. Version published to 10.1101/2020.04.10.20061259v1 on medRxiv
  5. Version published to 10.2196/preprints.19322