PMID- 36493388
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20230816
LR  - 20230818
IS  - 1556-3669 (Electronic)
IS  - 1530-5627 (Linking)
VI  - 29
IP  - 8
DP  - 2023 Aug
TI  - Telemedicine Use for Oncology Clinic Visits at a Large Medical Center During the 
      Onset of COVID-19.
PG  - 1186-1194
LID - 10.1089/tmj.2022.0294 [doi]
AB  - Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented surge toward 
      telemedicine. This project investigated oncology clinic telemedicine utilization 
      across the Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) from January to October 
      2020. Poorer prognosis and care of oncology patients is expected to be associated 
      with increased emergency department (ED) visits. Methods: January to October 2020 
      clinic visits were identified from the VUMC's Electronic Data Warehouse (EDW). 
      Oncology patients were identified by ICD-10 code and their EDW ED visit data were 
      extracted. Joinpoint piecewise linear regression evaluated trends in 
      tele-oncology visits. VUMC ED visits were compared for patients who did versus 
      did not use telemedicine for oncology clinic visits. A Welch's two-tailed t-test 
      investigated differences in ED visits/patient between these cohorts (alpha < 0.05). 
      Results: A sharp increase in tele-oncology clinic visits from January to April 
      2020 (Monthly Percent Change = 396.26%) was followed by a steady decrease from 
      April to October 2020 (Monthly Percent Change = -20.93%). The difference between 
      these two trends was significant (p < 0.002). Of 18 cancer sites, breast cancers 
      had the highest proportion (29.04%) of tele-oncology visits. There was no 
      significant difference in January to October 2020 ED usage for oncology patients 
      who did (0.40 ED visits/patient) versus did not (0.38 ED visits/patient) utilize 
      telemedicine (p = 0.69). A total of 9.64% of oncology clinic visits from January 
      to October 2020 were telemedicine visits, just below the 13.0% institutional 
      average. Discussion: At the VUMC, tele-oncology spiked in March and April 2020 
      before decreasing from April to October 2020. Breast cancer clinics were most 
      likely to use tele-oncology. Telemedicine use was not associated with increased 
      ED visits for oncology patients, suggesting telemedicine as an alternative for 
      routine oncology clinics. Oncology clinic telemedicine usage was 18th-highest 
      among 33 specialties at our institutions, and among the lowest of nonsurgical 
      specialties.
FAU - Dunwoodie, Leland
AU  - Dunwoodie L
AD  - Department of Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, 
      Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
FAU - Tiwari, Vikram
AU  - Tiwari V
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0003-3618-0149
AD  - Department of Biomedical Informatics and Department of Anesthesiology, Vanderbilt 
      University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
DEP - 20221209
PL  - United States
TA  - Telemed J E Health
JT  - Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American 
      Telemedicine Association
JID - 100959949
SB  - IM
MH  - Humans
MH  - Female
MH  - *COVID-19/epidemiology
MH  - Medical Oncology
MH  - Pandemics
MH  - *Telemedicine
MH  - Ambulatory Care
MH  - *Breast Neoplasms
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - Big Data
OT  - COVID-19
OT  - tele-oncology
OT  - telemedicine
EDAT- 2022/12/10 06:00
MHDA- 2023/08/16 06:43
CRDT- 2022/12/09 16:43
PHST- 2023/08/16 06:43 [medline]
PHST- 2022/12/10 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2022/12/09 16:43 [entrez]
AID - 10.1089/tmj.2022.0294 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Telemed J E Health. 2023 Aug;29(8):1186-1194. doi: 10.1089/tmj.2022.0294. Epub 
      2022 Dec 9.