COVID-19 The Impact of Delayed Cancer Treatment

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, health care providers and individuals are postponing screening measures like mammograms and colonoscopies. As a result, there are fewer cancers being diagnosed, and treatment regimens are being stretched out into less frequent encounters. Clinical trials have seen patient enrollment plummet.  

Most of the people contacting the American Cancer Society for information are the newly diagnosed.   Because the number of people being screened has dropped, our call volume to our information line has been reduced by 30 to 40 percent.  Many of the calls we have been receiving have been related to coping with the delay of care or the inability to get answers.   For example:

• Since completing chemotherapy for lymphoma in August, a man called to find out if he was considered high risk for the Coronavirus because of his prior cancer diagnosis.  The specialist shared information about people at risk for the virus. The specialist encouraged a discussion with the survivor’s care team and shared a list of questions to ask his doctor about his risk.
• A woman whose daughter has both BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 mutations called with concerns about high risk people accessing screenings and preventative surgeries. Her daughter was scheduled for a prophylactic mastectomy that has been postponed.  The specialist explained how taxing this crisis is on the medical field and shared the College of Surgeons recommendations.
• A breast cancer survivor called NCIC seeking information on emergency physical therapy for her lymphedema, as her provider’s office has closed.  Because she is unable to continue her therapy, fluid has built up in her arms. She is uncomfortable and understandably frustrated. The specialist encouraged leaving a voicemail for the provider and contacting a social worker to identify any local resources that may be available.

While we remain open every hour of every day, we don’t need as many people on duty to answer the calls, so we have adjusted our shifts and reduced the hours per employee.   We expect this to be temporary as cancer care reopens and people become more comfortable returning to their doctors while taking proper precautions.

However, we are not taking the slow period to rest.   Instead, we have introduced an innovation.   We have introduced video chats with constituents to help them through this time.   Because video conferences have become a mainstay of communication,  we thought people may get a better experience  from a seeing the person with whom they are talking.   It could also reduce feelings of isolation.

The way this experience is currently constructed, people arrive at our landing page and schedule time for a video chat.  We are using the Microsoft Teams platform.   When people register, they receive a link which will connect them to our specialist.   Before activating this service, we trained a subgroup of our staff on the technology and then rehearsed with family and friends so our staff could get used to delivering information while also looking at the person who connected with them.  This is different from a phone call where one can simply focus on the information they are relaying.   Early conversations via video chat have proved positive ones for both the constituents and our staff. 

We’ll be sure to provide an update on what we learn from implementing this service.

If you have any inquiries or questions about this article contact chuck.westbrook@cancer.org