Telepharmacy in cancer care well-received by patients, caregivers

Certain factors, such as ease of connectivity and timing, influence the experience of patients and caregivers with telepharmacy in cancer care, a study has found.

A group of researchers conducted this study to qualitatively assess the patient and caregiver experience of telepharmacy visits in a cancer centre.

Twenty-one cancer patients and seven caregivers who had attended a telepharmacy visit between 1 December 2021 and 24 May 2022 underwent semistructured interviews, which assess visit content, overall satisfaction, system experience, visit quality, and future preferences for pharmacy visits as telehealth versus in-person. Deductive and inductive coding were used to identify themes.

Delivery of telepharmacy was generally acceptable. The reasons for having the telepharmacy visit were as follows: reviewing chemotherapy procedures, side effects to expect during treatment, providing education on recently prescribed medications, offering dietary recommendations (eg, avoiding grapefruit juice), and performing medication reconciliation.

Participants were amenable to telepharmacy because of these two reasons: perceived lack of a need to have a physical exam and prior relationship with the pharmacist. They also stressed a major reason for having pharmacy visits through telehealth, which was to provide patient education, a thing they considered suitable for telehealth.

“Participants’ recommendations to improve telepharmacy delivery included health systems raising awareness of telepharmacy services and providing a list of questions to patients to guide discussions,” the researchers said.