Beyond broadband: digital inclusion as a driver of inequities in access to rural cancer care

Abstract

Purpose: Rural cancer survivors have worse quality of life than their urban counterparts. Telemedicine is a potential solution to connecting rural residents with specialized cancer providers during the survivorship period, but limitations in broadband may stifle the impact. Using data from a feasibility study evaluating a telemedicine intervention aimed at connecting rural Virginia cancer survivors with their care team located at a cancer center associated with an academic medical center, we sought to evaluate the ability of rural survivors to access the intervention and suggest strategies for improving access to rural cancer survivorship care.

Methods: We used a descriptive design with geospatial and quantitative methods to understand broadband access, driving time to a satellite telemedicine site, and ability to utilize a borrowed cellular-enabled tablet to participate in the intervention for cancer survivors living in Central Virginia.

Results: Our study participants resided in census tracts where an average of 58% of households have adequate broadband access necessary to support a telemedicine videoconferencing intervention. Average driving time to the nearest telemedicine site was 29.6 min. Those who utilized the borrowed tablet experienced considerable difficulty with utilizing the technology.

Conclusions: Rural cancer populations do not have equal access to a cancer survivorship telemedicine intervention.

Implications for cancer survivors: Telemedicine interventions aimed at connecting cancer survivors with their academic medical center-based cancer providers may be ineffective if survivors do not have access to either fixed broadband or a satellite clinic. Future research needs to evaluate other sites from which rural survivors can connect, such as rural public libraries.

Keywords: Access to care; Broadband access; Cancer survivorship; Rural populations; Telemedicine.