Best Practices for Providing Patient-Centered Tele-Palliative Care to Cancer Patients

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Telemedicine has become a permanent platform for delivering palliative care. Our review highlights the best practices that palliative care teams can incorporate to provide high-quality, interdisciplinary virtual care to cancer patients. ABSTRACT: Cancer patients receiving palliative care may face significant challenges in attending outpatient appointments. Patients on controlled substances such as opioids require frequent visits and often rely on assistive devices and/or a caregiver to accompany them to these visits. In addition, pain, fatigue, and shortness of breath may magnify the challenges associated with in-person visits. The rapid adoption of telemedicine in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be highly beneficial for advanced cancer patients and caregivers. The hurried COVID-19-related implementation of telemedicine is now evolving into a permanent platform for providing palliative care. This review will focus on the best practices and recommendations to deliver high-quality, interdisciplinary tele-palliative care.