Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Apr 14, 2021
Open Peer Review Period: Apr 14, 2021 - Apr 22, 2021
Date Accepted: May 31, 2021
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Telemedicine in Malignant and Non-Malignant Hematology: A Systematic Review of Pediatric and Adult Studies
ABSTRACT
Background:
Background:
Telemedicine interventions, including video, web, and telephone-based modalities, are used in adult and pediatric populations to deliver healthcare and communicate with patients. In the realm of hematology, telemedicine has recently been used to safely and efficiently monitor treatment side effects, perform consultations, and broaden the reach of subspecialty care.
Objective:
Objective:
To synthesize and analyze information regarding the feasibility, acceptability, and potential benefits of telemedicine interventions in malignant and non-malignant hematology, as well as assess the recognized limitations of these interventions.
Methods:
Methods:
Studies were identified through a comprehensive medical subject headings (MeSH) search on PubMed MEDLINE, Controlled Register of Clinical Trials (Cochrane CENTRAL from Wiley), EMBASE (embase.com), and CINAHL (EBSCO) databases on February 7, 2018. A second search, utilizing the same search strategy, was performed on October 1, 2020. We followed the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines in the reporting of included evidence. Included studies were original articles researching the feasibility, acceptability, and potential efficacy of telemedicine or tele-health interventions in pediatric or adult populations with malignant or non-malignant hematologic conditions. A standardized form including first author’s name, publication year, country, malignant or non-malignant hematological condition or disease focus of study, participants’ age, participant age subgroup (pediatric or adult), study design and setting, type and description of telemedicine intervention, purpose of study, and main study outcomes was used for data extraction.
Results:
Results:
A total of 32 articles met the pre-set criteria and were included in this study. Most (25/32) studies were conducted in adults, and the remaining (7/32) were conducted in the pediatric population. 12 studied hematologic conditions, 18 studied non-malignant conditions, and 2 studied both malignant and non-malignant conditions. Study types included pilot studies (11/32), retrospective studies (9/32), randomized control trials (6/32), cross sectional studies (2/32), case studies (1/32), pre-post studies (1/32), noncomparative prospective studies (1/32), and prospective cohort studies (1/32). The three main types of telemedicine intervention utilized across all studies were video (9/32), telephone (9/32), and web-based (14/32). Study results showed comparable outcomes between telemedicine and traditional patient encounter groups across both pediatric and adult populations in malignant and non-malignant hematological conditions.
Conclusions:
Conclusion: Evidence from this review suggests that telemedicine use in nonmalignant and malignant hematology provides similar or improved healthcare compared to face-to-face encounters in both pediatric and adult populations. Telemedicine modalities utilized in included studies were well received in both pediatric and adult settings. However, more research is needed to determine the efficacy of implementing more a more widespread use of telemedicine for hematologic conditions. Clinical Trial: N/A
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© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.