Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Sep 28, 2020
Date Accepted: Dec 24, 2020
Date Submitted to PubMed: Jan 4, 2021
Implementation of A Remote Oncology Pharmacy Service Platform During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center Experience
ABSTRACT
Background:
The outbreak of COVID-19 increased difficulties associated with health management, especially cancer management. To provide continuous pharmaceutical care to cancer patients, the Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center (SYSUCC) implemented a remote pharmacy service platform based on its already existing online hospital app, known as Cloud SYSUCC.
Objective:
The aim of this study is to investigate the characteristics, acceptance, and initial impact of Cloud SYSUCC during the outbreak of COVID-19 in a tertiary cancer hospital in China.
Methods:
The total number of online prescriptions and detailed information were obtained during the first 6 months after work resumption. Patients’ gender, age, residence, primary diagnosis, drug classification, weekly number of prescriptions, prescribed drugs and patients were included in the analysis. Meanwhile, a telephone survey regarding the patients’ satisfaction using the remote prescription service was conducted.
Results:
A total of 1718 prescriptions including 2022 drugs for 1212 patients were delivered to 24 provinces and municipalities directly under the Central Government of China between February 12, 2020 and August 11, 2020. The majority of patients were female (841, 69.39%) and 90.18% (n=1093) of the patients were aged 31 to 70 years old. The top three online medical prescription diagnosis were breast cancer (599, 49.42%), liver cancer (249, 20.54%), and thyroid cancer (125, 10.31%). Of the 1718 delivered prescriptions, 1435 (83.5%) were sent to Guangdong Province and 283 (16.5%) were sent to other provinces in China. Of the 2022 delivered drugs, 1012 (50.05%) were hormonal drugs. The general trend in the use of the online prescription service was down since the 10th weeks. A telephone survey showed 88% (n=88) participants were very satisfied while 12% (n=12) were somewhat satisfied with our remote pharmacy service platform.
Conclusions:
The Cloud SYSUCC remote pharmacy platform is efficient and convenient for continuous pharmaceutical care to cancer patients during the COVID-19 crisis. The widespread use of this platform can help to reduce person-to-person transmission as well as the infection risk of patients with cancer diseases. Further efforts need to be made to improve the quality and acceptance of Cloud SYSUCC, as well as to regulate and standardize the management of this novel service.
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