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Use of Teleconsultations in a Regional Stereotactic Radiosurgery Service: Pilot Study

BACKGROUND: The National Health Service Long Term Plan details plans to make digital interactions available to all patients in 5 years. Teleconsultations can improve access to specialist services; however, there is a lack of evidence for the use of teleconsultations in an oncology setting in the Uni...

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Autores principales: O'Cathail, Micheal, Aznar-Garcia, Luis, Sivanandan, Ananth, Diver, Claire, Patel, Poulam, Tang, Pui-Shan, Christian, Judith
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7895639/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33544082
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/15598
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author O'Cathail, Micheal
Aznar-Garcia, Luis
Sivanandan, Ananth
Diver, Claire
Patel, Poulam
Tang, Pui-Shan
Christian, Judith
author_facet O'Cathail, Micheal
Aznar-Garcia, Luis
Sivanandan, Ananth
Diver, Claire
Patel, Poulam
Tang, Pui-Shan
Christian, Judith
author_sort O'Cathail, Micheal
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The National Health Service Long Term Plan details plans to make digital interactions available to all patients in 5 years. Teleconsultations can improve access to specialist services; however, there is a lack of evidence for the use of teleconsultations in an oncology setting in the United Kingdom. OBJECTIVE: We aim to describe a service evaluation of teleconsultations for patients attending a regional brain metastases clinic. These patients have unique travel restrictions that prevent them from driving. METHODS: From April to October 2018, all patients attending the brain metastases clinic were offered the choice of teleconsultation in place of a face-to-face appointment. Feedback was assessed using a satisfaction questionnaire, and data of all clinic attendances were collected. RESULTS: A total of 69 individual patients had 119 appointments over the duration of the pilot, of which 36 (30.2%) were new patient appointments and 73 (61.3%) were follow-ups. Of the 69 patients, 24 (35%) took part in teleconsultations (41/119, 34.5%). User satisfaction was high, and no patients who took part in a teleconsultation reverted to face-to-face appointments. These patients avoided 2521 miles (61.6 miles per appointment) of hospital-associated travel and travel costs of £441.48 (US $599.83) to £10.78 (US $14.65) per appointment. CONCLUSIONS: Teleconsultations appear to be acceptable in this cohort of patients with brain metastases attending a regional stereotactic radiosurgery service with the potential for significant savings in travel and expenses.
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spelling pubmed-78956392021-02-24 Use of Teleconsultations in a Regional Stereotactic Radiosurgery Service: Pilot Study O'Cathail, Micheal Aznar-Garcia, Luis Sivanandan, Ananth Diver, Claire Patel, Poulam Tang, Pui-Shan Christian, Judith JMIR Form Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: The National Health Service Long Term Plan details plans to make digital interactions available to all patients in 5 years. Teleconsultations can improve access to specialist services; however, there is a lack of evidence for the use of teleconsultations in an oncology setting in the United Kingdom. OBJECTIVE: We aim to describe a service evaluation of teleconsultations for patients attending a regional brain metastases clinic. These patients have unique travel restrictions that prevent them from driving. METHODS: From April to October 2018, all patients attending the brain metastases clinic were offered the choice of teleconsultation in place of a face-to-face appointment. Feedback was assessed using a satisfaction questionnaire, and data of all clinic attendances were collected. RESULTS: A total of 69 individual patients had 119 appointments over the duration of the pilot, of which 36 (30.2%) were new patient appointments and 73 (61.3%) were follow-ups. Of the 69 patients, 24 (35%) took part in teleconsultations (41/119, 34.5%). User satisfaction was high, and no patients who took part in a teleconsultation reverted to face-to-face appointments. These patients avoided 2521 miles (61.6 miles per appointment) of hospital-associated travel and travel costs of £441.48 (US $599.83) to £10.78 (US $14.65) per appointment. CONCLUSIONS: Teleconsultations appear to be acceptable in this cohort of patients with brain metastases attending a regional stereotactic radiosurgery service with the potential for significant savings in travel and expenses. JMIR Publications 2021-02-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7895639/ /pubmed/33544082 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/15598 Text en ©Micheal O'Cathail, Luis Aznar-Garcia, Ananth Sivanandan, Claire Diver, Poulam Patel, Pui-Shan Tang, Judith Christian. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (http://formative.jmir.org), 05.02.2021. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Formative Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://formative.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
O'Cathail, Micheal
Aznar-Garcia, Luis
Sivanandan, Ananth
Diver, Claire
Patel, Poulam
Tang, Pui-Shan
Christian, Judith
Use of Teleconsultations in a Regional Stereotactic Radiosurgery Service: Pilot Study
title Use of Teleconsultations in a Regional Stereotactic Radiosurgery Service: Pilot Study
title_full Use of Teleconsultations in a Regional Stereotactic Radiosurgery Service: Pilot Study
title_fullStr Use of Teleconsultations in a Regional Stereotactic Radiosurgery Service: Pilot Study
title_full_unstemmed Use of Teleconsultations in a Regional Stereotactic Radiosurgery Service: Pilot Study
title_short Use of Teleconsultations in a Regional Stereotactic Radiosurgery Service: Pilot Study
title_sort use of teleconsultations in a regional stereotactic radiosurgery service: pilot study
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7895639/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33544082
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/15598
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