The future of tele-oncology: Trends and disparities in telehealth and secure message utilization in the COVID-19 era.

Authors

null

Elad Neeman

San Francisco Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente Northern California, San Francisco, CA

Elad Neeman , Liisa Lyon , Hongxin Sun , Carol Andrea Conell , Mary Reed , Deepika Kumar , Tatjana Kolevska , Kotak Dinesh M. , Tilak Kumar Sundaresan , Raymond Liu

Organizations

San Francisco Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente Northern California, San Francisco, CA, Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente Northern California, Oakland, CA, The Permanente Medical Group Consulting Services, Oakland, CA, Napa/Solano Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente Northern California, Vallejo, CA, Napa/Solano Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente Northern California, Roseville, CA

Research Funding

No funding received
None

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic created an imperative to re-examine the role of telehealth in oncology. Herein we report trends and demographic disparities in utilization of telehealth and secure messaging (SM; i.e., email via portal/app), before and during the pandemic, at a large integrated healthcare system. Methods: This population-based retrospective cohort study examines utilization of various patient-provider visit types (office, video, telephone) and SM from 1/1/2019-9/30/2020 at 22 Kaiser Permanente Northern California Hematology and Oncology practices. We explored changes associated with the pandemic (i.e., since 03/2020, when stay home orders were introduced) as well as demographic differences, using Chi-square for categorical and the Mann-Whitney U Test for non-parametric comparisons. Results: During the study period, there were 334,666 visits and 1,161,239 SM sent between patients and providers. Since the pandemic, total monthly average of visits declined only slightly by 4.1%, but monthly average office visits decreased by 80% from 11,001 to 2,170, monthly average video visits increased from 40 to 4,666, and monthly average telephone visits increased by 69% from 5,114 to 8,663. The monthly average SM increased by 26% from 50,788 to 64,315. The trend of increasing telehealth utilization was sustained and stabilized between 07-09/2020. New consultations initially decreased from a mean of 1,995 per month (12.4% of all visits) in 2019, to a minimum of 1,179 (8.6%) by 05/2020, returning to 1,619 (11.7%) by 09/2020. Pandemic era video visits were a significantly higher fraction of all visits (p < 0.01) in: (1) younger patients (Gen Z 48%, Gen Y/Millennials 46%; Gen X 40%; Baby Boomers 34.4%; Pre-Boomers 24.5%); (2) patients with commercial insurance (39%) compared to those with Medicaid (32.7%) or Medicare (28.1%); (3) Primary English speakers (33.7%) compared to those who require an interpreter (24.5%);(4) Asians (35%) and non-Hispanic Whites (33.7%) compared to Blacks (30.1%) and Hispanic Whites (27.5%); (5) married/ domestic partner patients (35%) compared to single/divorced/widowed patients (29.9%); (6) patients with a Charlson comorbidity index ≤3 (36.2%) compared to > 3 (31.3%); and (7) males (34.6%) compared to females (32.3%). Similar statistically significant SM utilization patterns were also seen. Conclusions: In the pandemic era, utilization of telehealth and SM rapidly increased in all demographic categories, shifting the landscape and resource allocation of hematology/oncology practices in a manner that is feasible and sustained. New consultations decreased early in pandemic with return to pre-pandemic levels by 09/2020. Utilization of video visits and SM significantly differ between various demographic populations with disparities seen by age, insurance plan, English proficiency, race/ethnicity, marital status, comorbidities, and gender.

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Abstract Details

Meeting

2021 ASCO Annual Meeting

Session Type

Oral Abstract Session

Session Title

Care Delivery and Regulatory Policy

Track

Care Delivery and Quality Care

Sub Track

Telemedicine/Remote Care

Citation

J Clin Oncol 39, 2021 (suppl 15; abstr 1506)

DOI

10.1200/JCO.2021.39.15_suppl.1506

Abstract #

1506

Abstract Disclosures

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