How Telemedicine is transforming cancer care during the pandemic

ONE of the most pressing challenges brought on by the coronavirus crisis is its serious impact on the delivery of health services. The burden is particularly heavy among patients in need of urgent and continuous treatment such as those living with cancer. As countries are prompted to place populations in quarantine and limit movement and gatherings to reduce the spread of infection, a workaround that continues to gain acceptance is telemedicine, wherein screening or consultation between a doctor and a patient is conducted via video or phone conferencing instead of in-person appointments.

In the Philippines, telehealth opens up a horizon of hope in cancer management given that patients, who are immunosuppressed or with underlying conditions, are in greater danger of developing more serious complications from Covid-19, including more frequent pneumonias and multiple organ failure. Through telemedicine, cancer patients can “communicate their concerns to their doctors without unnecessarily exposing themselves to the risks of getting infected,” says Amiel Herrera, chief executive officer of a full-suite telehealth and clinical informatics company in the National Capital Region.

Virtual clinics have been in existence prior to the pandemic but the acceptance rate then among medical practitioners was less than 50 percent, Herrera notes. When the threat of Covid-19 resulted in confinements everywhere leading to remote arrangements such as work from home and online schooling, “the percentage of physicians accepting telemedicine increased to 90 percent as part of their new normal.”

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Source: TheManila Times