Telemedicine and Palliative Care: an Increasing Role in Supportive Oncology

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•• Hennemann-Krause L, Lopes AJ, Araujo JA, et al. The assessment of telemedicine to support outpatient palliative care in advanced cancer. Pallaitive and Supportive Care. 2015;13(4):1025–30. This is one of the only interventions to this point that directly assesses the use of telemedicine and palliative care for oncology patients and is helpful to look at both the positive and negative facets of this intervention

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• Achey, Meredith A., et al. A randomized controlled trial of telemedicine for Parkinson disease (Connect. Parkinson) in the United States: interim assessment of investigator and participant experiences. Mov Disord 2015. Vol. 30. Although this is a different patient population, it is a well conducted, multi-site intervention looking at how telemedicine care better care for seriously ill patients outside of the hospital. Additionally, it is helpful to get the feedback from the provider side of the telemedicine intervention.

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•• Peretz D, Arnaert A, Ponzoni N. Determining the cost of implementing and operative a remote patient monitoring programme for the elderly with chronic conditions: a systematic review of economic evaluations. Journal of Telemeding and Telecare. 2016; doi: 10.1177/1357633X16669239 . It is helpful to see the financial impact of telemedicine given the push for controlled healthcare costs, more cost transparency as well as a need for physicians to further understand the financial impact of their interventions