Patients with Advanced Cancer during the COVID‐19 Pandemic in Ukraine

Hojouj Mohammad

doi:10.31579/2693-4787/031

Abstract

COVID‐19 has overwhelmed the capacity of health care systems, limiting access to supportive and palliative care for patients with advanced cancer. Telemedicine has emerged as a tool to provide care continuity to patients while limiting the risk of contagion. However, implementing telemedicine in resource‐limited settings is challenging. We report the results of a multidisciplinary patient‐navigator‐led telemedicine supportive care program in Dnipro City. One‐hundred sixty‐five telemedicine interventions were provided to 77 patients (median age 67, 47% female). A quarter of the patients had less than or equal to elementary school education, and 18% lived in a rural area. The most common interventions were psychological care (30%), pain and symptom control (27%), and nutritional counseling (10%). Half of the interventions were provided by video conferencing. The most common patient‐reported barrier was limited experience using communication technology. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of providing supportive and palliative care interventions using telemedicine in resource‐limited settings.

Highlights

On March 11, the World Health Organization declared COVID‐19 a pandemic [1]
In Ukraine, COVID‐19 led to a health care system reorganization [3]: some hospitals were designated as COVID‐19 centers, and as a consequence, outpatient clinics were closed, elective surgeries were suspended, and patients needing emergency care were referred to non‐COVID hospitals
All consecutive patients with a recent diagnosis of advanced cancer seen at the oncology clinics at Oncology department DMA are included in Te Acompañamos and undergo basal supportive and palliative care needs assessments, which are reviewed by a multidisciplinary patient navigator (PN)‐led team that recommends tailored interventions

Summary

Introduction

On March 11, the World Health Organization declared COVID‐19 a pandemic [1]. Patients undergoing active cancer treatment at maintained their oncology clinic visits and treatment appointments, all other supportive care visits were suspended. Offering continued supportive and palliative care represented a challenge, and telemedicine emerged as a potential solution [3]. Telemedicine is the use of communication and information technologies to provide clinical services [4] and represents an option to provide remote support to patients during the pandemic [5]. We describe how we transformed a multidisciplinary supportive and palliative care program into a telemedicine intervention for patients with advanced cancer during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Methods

Results

Conclusion