Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Apr 15, 2020
Date Accepted: Jun 21, 2020
Date Submitted to PubMed: Jun 22, 2020
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Rapid Utilization of Telehealth in a Comprehensive Cancer Center as a Response to COVID-19
ABSTRACT
Background:
The emergence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (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 consultations as a means to continue ambulatory care.
Objective:
To characterize the increase in video visits at the University of California, San Francisco Comprehensive Cancer Center in response to COVID-19 and compare demographics/appointment data from January 1, 2020 and in the 3 weeks after transition to video visits.
Methods:
Demographics and appointment data (dates, visit types, and departments) were abstracted from the Electronic Health Record reporting database. Video visits were performed using a HIPAA-compliant video conferencing platform with a pre-existing workflow.
Results:
In 17 departments and divisions at the Cancer Center, 2,284 video visits were performed in the pre-COVID-19 period (average 208 75 per week) and 3,015 performed in the 3-week post-COVID-19 period (average 1,005 149 per week). The proportion of video visits increased from 7-18% to 54-68%, between the pre- and post-COVID-19 periods without any disparity based on race/ethnicity, primary language, or insurance.
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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