JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

elehealth has emerged as an effective channel providing outpatient services in many countries. However, majority telehealth systems focus on operational functions offering sectional patient journey at the most. Experience of incorporating longitudinal real-world medical record data by taking advantage of telehealth is valuable but has not been widely shared. The benefits of such a telehealth platform with comprehensive live-fed real-world data for cancer patient care are yet to be studied.

Objective:

The primary purpose of this study is to understand the feasibility and benefits of cancer patient care using a telehealth platform with live-fed longitudinal real-world data supplemental to hospital electronic medical records systems, specifically from physician’s perspective.

Methods:

A telehealth platform was built and launched for physician and patient registration. Real-world data was collected and curated using a comprehensive data model. Physician activities using the telehealth platform are recorded as system logs and analyzed. A survey was conducted in February 2023 among the registered physicians to assess the qualitative effectiveness of patient care, and quantitative benefits of their before and after experience including number of patients managed, time spent, dropout rate, visits rate, followup data. Descriptive and inferential statistics are performed on the datasets.

Results:

Over a period of 15 months, 16 035 unique users (13 888 patients, 1 539 friends and family members, 174 physician groups with 608 individuals) were registered. More than 382 000 messages including text, reminders, pictures, etc. were generated by physicians in communicating with patients. 78 group leaders (45% of the groups) participated the survey. 84%(65.6/78, SD: 8.7) of the participants reported positive experience of efficient communication, remote supervision, quicker response to questions, adverse event prevention, more complete followup data, patient risk reduction, cross-organization collaboration and in-person visits reduction. Majority of them (76% - 97.4%) estimated improvements in time spending, number of patients managed, drop off rate and access to medical history, average ranging from 57% to 105%. When comparing to prior platforms, responses from those physicians indicate better experience in time spending, drop off rate and medical history while number of patients managed does not show significance.

Conclusions:

This study indicates that a telehealth platform with comprehensive live-fed real-world data for cancer patient care is feasible and effective inpatient management with improved time spending, drop off rate and access to medical history and positive experience in physician-patient interaction.