Abstract: PD09-01
Sources of Funding: none

Introduction

Telemedicine is gaining in popularity and has demonstrable efficacy in carrying out patient interviews over a video-conference system. The amenability of telemedicine to evaluate prostate cancer at various stages of disease has not yet been studied. Our primary objective was to evaluate patient satisfaction in the evaluation of patients with prostate cancer at various stages using telemedicine encounters (TME).

Methods

We performed a retrospective review of 424 consecutive TME at an urban academic urology practice carried out from its inception in October 2015 to August 2016; 219 patients (52%) completed our satisfaction survey. After each encounter, patients were asked to rate their satisfaction with their provider and of their use of a HIPAA-compliant video-conference system separately on a Likert scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most favorable and 1 being the least favorable. Of patients who completed the survey, 30 individual TME had prostate cancer as the primary diagnosis. These TME were separated according to the reason for each TME, and the mean (μ) satisfaction scores were calculated for each reason. ANOVA testing was used to determine significant difference in patient satisfaction based on reason for TME.

Results

The breakdown of the 30 encounters is as depicted in Table 1. There was no significant difference in satisfaction between the reasons for each visit [patient-provider satisfaction (PPS) p= 0.27; patient-system satisfaction (PSS) p= 0.94]. Of note, 10 prostate biopsy discussion encounters and 2 PSA follow-up encounters were carried out as part of the patients' active surveillance protocol. 8 prostate biopsy visits were carried out for discussion of a newly positive prostate biopsy result or an increase in the patient's Gleason Score with μ PPS = 4.88 and μ PSS = 4.88. For the remaining visits with no change in biopsy results, μ PPS = 5.0 and μ PSS = 4.5.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that video visits can satisfactorily be carried out in the management of prostate cancer; particularly with patients undergoing active surveillance. Discussion of newly positive biopsies or an advanced Gleason score may also satisfactorily be carried out.

Funding

none