Abstract 1743P
Background
The COVID-19 pandemic has undeniably disrupted the delivery of cancer care. Patients are having difficulty finding necessary information on how to manage their disease during this time, leading to increased stress and anxiety. Furthermore, alternative sources including the media and online resources may provide contradictory guidance. There is, therefore, an emerging need for a two-way platform connecting patients with healthcare experts specific to their cancer care to rapidly communicate up-to-date information and address their concerns.
Methods
A platform to host webinars was developed as part of the How I Treat COVID-19 (HITC) academic project created by a group of physicians and medical students. Each webinar brings experts and patients together to address a specific cancer type. A physician panelist will first discuss the diagnosis and management of the cancer type prior to the pandemic, and how COVID-19 has influenced the delivery of care. A patient or survivor panelist then shares on how their cancer management has been affected thus far, their fears throughout this experience, and their expectations of the healthcare system. Finally, participants will be given the opportunity to have questions answered live by the panelists. At the conclusion of the webinar, feedback will be gathered, and a post-webinar report will be generated. Webinars are done in collaboration with respective patient support groups.
Results
22 webinars have been planned to cover 11 different cancer types in both English and French in collaboration with 21 patient group associations. 7 webinars have been delivered successfully to 431 participants with the largest webinar hosting 117 participants. Feedback results have demonstrated that these webinars have successfully filled a knowledge gap and an unmet need amongst patients. Table: 1743P
Current How I Treat COVID-19 webinar involvement
| How I Treat COVID-19 (HITC) Team Members | 7 |
| Webinars planned | 22 |
| Webinars executed | 7 |
| Healthcare expert panelists confirmed | 15 |
| Patient/Survivor panelists confirmed | 13 |
| Patient Associations collaborations | 21 |
Conclusions
The delivery of How I Treat COVID-19 webinars are underway to identify the challenges in specific areas, inform the general public, produce a synthesized report outlining the learnings from each discussion, then plan other activities with medical associations and decision makers. We ultimately aim to involve all parties and help recreate a new model adapted to the current reality and optimized to survive all possible scenarios. Success with the Canadian population will inform initiatives to expand this project to the international community..
Clinical trial identification
Editorial acknowledgement
Legal entity responsible for the study
Elie Kassouf.
Funding
Has not received any funding.
Disclosure
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.