KIT 1 (Keep in Touch) Project—Televisits for Cancer Patients during Italian Lockdown for COVID-19 Pandemic: The Real-World Experience of Establishing a Telemedicine System

Abstract

To evaluate the adoption of an integrated eHealth platform for televisit/monitoring/consultation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: During the lockdown imposed by the Italian government during the COVID19 pandemic spread, a dedicated multi-professional working group was set up in the Radiation Oncology Department with the primary aim of reducing patients’ exposure to COVID-19 by adopting de-centralized/remote consultation methodologies. Each patient’s clinical history was screened before the visit to assess if a traditional clinical visit would be recommended or if a remote evaluation was to be preferred. Real world data (RWD) in the form of patient-reported outcomes (PROMs) and patient reported experiences (PREMs) were collected from patients who underwent televisit/teleconsultation through the eHealth platform. Results: During the lockdown period (from 8 March to 4 May 2020) a total of 1956 visits were managed. A total of 983 (50.26%) of these visits were performed via email (to apply for and to upload of documents) and phone call management; 31 visits (1.58%) were performed using the eHealth system. Substantially, all patients found the eHealth platform useful and user-friendly, consistently indicating that this type of service would also be useful after the pandemic. Conclusions: The rapid implementation of an eHealth system was feasible and well-accepted by the patients during the pandemic. However, we believe that further evidence is to be generated to further support large-scale adoption.

Design and application of a novel telemedicine system jointly driven by multinetwork integration and remote control: Practical experience from PLAGH, China

“…China has a vast territory, however, the distributions of its population and medical resources are uneven: approximately 36% of the population lives in rural areas, while approximately 80% of medical resources are concentrated in large‐ and medium‐sized cities [ 3 , 4 ]. Therefore, the implementation of telemedicine could address regional inequality in the distribution of medical resources in China, reduce the medical costs of patients, and improve the timeliness of disease monitoring, diagnosis, and treatment [ 5 , 6 ].…”