Virtual Care and Electronic Patient Communication During COVID-19: Cross-sectional Study of Inequities Across a Canadian Tertiary Cancer Center.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Virtual care (VC) visits (telephone or video) and email-based patient communication have been rapidly adopted to facilitate cancer care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Inequities in access and patient experience may arise as these digital health tools become prevalent.

Objective

We aimed to characterize inequities in access and patient-reported experience following adoption of digital health tools at a tertiary cancer center during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

We designed a cross-sectional study of outpatients with visits from September to December 2020. Patient characteristics and responses to an email-based patient-experience survey were collated. Inequities in access were assessed across three pairs of comparison groups: (1) patients with VC and in-perso

SUBMITTER: Safavi AH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9640204 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature