Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on in-Person Visit Rates Among Patients with Hematologic Malignancies in the United States

Background/objectives:

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a dramatic reduction of in-person medical care in the general population; however, impacts have not been well-characterized for patients with hematologic malignancies. This study assessed the impact of COVID-19 on healthcare delivery for patients with hematologic malignancies with documented active treatment.

Methods:

Patients from the nationwide Flatiron Health electronic health record (EHR)-derived de-identified database with confirmed diagnosis of AML, DLBCL, FL, MCL, CLL or MM, and age ≥ 18 years at initial diagnosis were included. To be included in the study, documented receipt of at least one systemic, non-maintenance line of therapy between March 1, 2016 - February 28, 2021 was required. Patients were categorized into treatment types within lines of therapy: Oral therapy (OralTx); outpatient infusions (OutPtTx); and inpatient infusions, including hematopoietic transplants and CAR-T cell therapy (InPtTx). Monthly visit rates were calculated as the number of visits (telemedicine or in-person [in-clinic treatment administration, vitals, and/or labs]) per active patient per 30-day standardized month. Only visits occurring within a line of therapy were included (i.e. during active therapy, excluding surveillance). Telemedicine was only available for abstraction during the pandemic period. We used time-series forecasting methods on pre-pandemic monthly visit rate data (March 2016 - February 2020) to estimate projected counterfactual visit rates between March 2020 - February 2021 (expected in-person visit rates if the pandemic had not occurred) for all diseases combined, each disease, and each treatment type. Differences between projected and actual monthly visit rates during the pandemic period were considered statistically significant and related to the pandemic if the actual visit rate was outside of the 95% prediction interval (PI) surrounding the projected estimate.

Results:

A total of 22,559 patients were included in this analysis (6,241 OralTx, 14,501 OutPtTx, 7,675 InPtTx): 4,069 AML, 3,641 DLBCL, 2,004 FL, 1,899 MCL, 4,574 CLL and 6,701 MM. There was a gradual downward trend in in-person visit rates across all diseases over the study period (March 2016 - February 2021, Figure) and general visit frequencies were lower for OralTx and higher for OutPtTx and InPtTx overall. For all diseases combined, early pandemic months (March - May 2020) saw an 18% (95% PI 8.9% - 25%) reduction in in-person visit rates averaged across OralTx and OutPtTx, with the projected rate being 1.5 (95% PI 1.3 - 1.6) visits per patient per month, compared to an actual rate of 1.2. Reductions in the in-person visit rates were significant for all 3 treatment types for MM, for OralTx for CLL, and for OutPtTx for MCL and CLL. Telemedicine visit rates were greatest for patients who received OralTx, followed by OutPtTx, then InPtTx, with greater use in the early pandemic months and subsequent decrease in later months. All in-person visit rates increased close to predicted rates in the later half of the pandemic period.

Conclusions:

In treatment of hematologic malignancies, overall documented in-person visit rates for patients on OralTx and OutPtTx significantly decreased during early pandemic months, but returned close to the projected rates later in the pandemic. There were no significant reductions in the overall in-person visit rate for patients on InPtTx. Variability in these trends by disease type was observed, with significant reductions in in-person visits impacting MM, CLL, and MCL.

Figure. Visit rates over time according to treatment category

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