Telehealth Strategies to Support Patients and Families Across the Cancer Trajectory

Abstract

Effective delivery of cancer care via telehealth requires a planned care system that accounts for myriad patient, provider, and practice/cancer center resources before, during, and after the care episode. Telehealth is broadly defined as a method to have virtual, bidirectional communication between patients and providers. Telehealth can include methods such as audio-only, video-consultation, and tele-monitoring, which can occur in a synchronous, asynchronous, or blended format. The purpose of this review is to present common foundational principles for providing clinical cancer care via telehealth, followed by an overview of three distinct examples of comprehensive telehealth programs that have been developed to meet the needs of patients and families across the cancer trajectory, including survivorship, rehabilitation, and palliative care phases. The programs described are exemplars that were developed and implemented prior to the coronavirus pandemic, so they reflect many years of planning and evidence. Lessons learned include the need for ongoing patient support, clinician training, and cancer health system/practice programmatic considerations such as billing, scheduling, reimbursement, software, and hardware/platform security. Although the COVID-19 pandemic produced an explosive shift in regulations and implementation, sustainability of these changes may not be long-term. Nevertheless, a permanent shift in cancer care to include telehealth is likely here to stay.