Limitations
The results of this study are certainly influenced by the social context
and implications of the COVID-19 pandemic. An additional question
administered to the patients allowed them to express concern about their
health during COVID-19: this question had an average score of
5.03. As expected, patients with ongoing cancer treatment were
more likely to worry about their health than those who had finished
oncology treatment. In addition, many patients would qualify high scores
by adding that they thought telehealth visits were appropriate in
response to the ongoing pandemic.
Additional limitations of this study include bias in patient selection
and response bias of those completing the survey. Only patients with
video-based telemedicine visits were contacted to participate. Patients
who did not have access to these platforms or the requisite technology
and services were offered telephone calls with audio only. Notably,
successful use of a telemedicine platform requires a baseline knowledge
of technology and access to a smartphone or home
brand.38 Thus, this study did not capture the results
of patients who due to socioeconomic circumstances or low technology
literacy were unable to have a video-based telemedicine visit. This was
the case for 23 patients among 145 total patients who completed a
telemedicine over the course of one month. This study also suffered from
some of the inherent issues with telemedicine research. Generally,
patients report high levels of satisfaction with the healthcare they
receive.25The majority of patients in this study have
established relationships with their physicians and thus could have had
trouble separating their satisfaction from their care in general with
their satisfaction pertaining to the telehealth visit. To limit this,
the purpose of the study was explained and this distinction was
explicitly addressed prior to administration of the survey.