ArticleJCO oncology practice2021
Clinical Efficiency and Safety Outcomes of Virtual Care for Oncology Patients During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Article in JCO oncology practice, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Early Examination of Hospital-Level Performance on Unplanned, Potentially Avoidable Hospital Visits After Chemotherapy, 2018-2022.Health services research · 2026Article
- Use of Virtual Oncology in Hepatopancreatobiliary Cancers: A Scoping Review.Annals of surgical oncology · 2026Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Hemato-Oncology Services: A Retrospective Dual-Center Cohort Study in Kazakhstan.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Article
- Specialty-specific Evaluation of Virtual care Outcomes: A retrospective QUality and safety analysis (S-EVOQUe).PLOS digital health · 2025Article
- Article
- Patient Safety and Satisfaction With Fully Remote Management of Radiation Oncology Care.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Telemedicine Utilization and Satisfaction Among Breast Cancer Patients During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mixed-Methods Analysis.Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association · 2024Article
- Article
- A Rebalancing of Financial Valuations and Expectations Moving Forward in the Telehealth Sector as the United States Moves Toward a Post-COVID-19 Reality.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Article
- Disparities in the Uptake of Telemedicine and Implications for Clinical Trial Enrollment in Patients With Breast Cancer.International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics · 2023Article
- Clinical trial reform in the post-COVID era.Therapeutic advances in medical oncology · 2023Review
- Primary care utilization for patients with newly diagnosed cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic: a population-based study.BMC cancer · 2022Article
- Breast Medical Oncologists' Perspectives of Telemedicine for Breast Cancer Care: A Survey Study.JCO oncology practice · 2022Article
- The Impact of Virtual Cancer Care on Chemotherapy Delivery and Clinical Outcomes in Colorectal Cancer Patients Receiving Systemic Therapy: A Pre- and Intra-Pandemic Analysis.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2022Article
- The Doctor Will FaceTime You Now: Commentary on Telehealth in Cancer Care.The oncologist · 2022Article
- Impact of COVID-19 on Hematology-Oncology Fellowship Programs: A Quantitative and Qualitative Survey Assessment of Fellowship Program Directors.JCO oncology practice · 2022Article
- The Use of Virtual Care in Patients with Hematologic Malignancies: A Scoping Review.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2022Article
- Lessons for Oncology From the COVID-19 Pandemic: Operationalizing and Scaling Virtual Cancer Care in Health Systems.Cancer journal (Sudbury, Mass.)Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeTelehealth has been an integral response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, no studies to date have examined the utility and safety of telehealth for oncology patients undergoing systemic treatments. Concerns of the adequacy of virtual patient assessments for oncology patients include the risk and high acuity of illness and complications while on treatment.
methodsWe assessed metrics related to clinical efficiency and treatment safety after propensity matching of newly referred patients starting systemic therapy where care was in large part replaced by telehealth between March and May 2020, and 206 newly referred patients from a similar time period in 2019 where all encounters were in-person visits.
resultsPatient-initiated telephone encounters that capture care or effort outside of visits, time to staging imaging, and time to therapy initiation were not significantly different between cohorts. Similarly, 3 month all-cause or cancer-specific emergency department presentations and hospitalizations, and treatment delays were not significantly different between cohorts. There were substantial savings in travel time with virtual care, with an average of 211.4 minutes saved per patient over a 3-month interval.
conclusionOur results indicate that replacement of in-person care with virtual care in oncology does not lead to worse efficiency or outcomes. Given the increased barriers to patients seeking oncology care during the pandemic, our study indicates that telehealth efforts may be safely intensified. These findings also have implications for the continual use of virtual care in oncology beyond the pandemic.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.