Patient Satisfaction with Pharmacist Video Visits in an Outpatient Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Clinic

Introduction The number of HCT recipients and survivors continues to increase worldwide. With this growth, strategies are needed to improve delivery and access to HCT. We implemented video visits for patients and pharmacists in our HCT clinic in 2016 and initiated a cross-sectional, self-administered, descriptive survey study of patient satisfaction in outpatient adult HCT patients. Objective To determine if patient satisfaction with a pharmacist video visit is non-inferior to a face-to-face, in-clinic pharmacist visit in HCT patients. Methods Patients self-allocated to either face-to-face or video visits for future appointments after having at least one face-to-face pharmacist visit. Survey questions were based on the Health-Systems Alliance for Integrated Medication Management (HAIMM) survey. The primary endpoint to assess if pharmacist video visits are non-inferior to face-to-face visits was based on response to the question “Overall, how would you rate the quality of care and services you received from the pharmacist?” using a Likert-scale from 1 to 5 (excellent to poor). Secondary endpoints include likelihood of medication reconciliation using the medication bottles in patients with video visits compared with face-to-face visits and pharmacist satisfaction with video visits versus face-to-face visits. The average length of visit, delays, and total time spent per patient were captured to describe time efficiency differences between pharmacist video visits and pharmacist face-to-face visits. Results To date, 111 patients in the face to face arm and 20 patients in the video arm have completed surveys. The survey response rate to the 15-question survey in the face-to-face arm is 100% and 43% in the video arm. Overall, 95% of patients had high satisfaction (rated excellent or very good) with video visits in comparison to 99% in the control group (p = 0.25). Table 1 summarizes other patient satisfaction responses to the survey. Conclusion To our knowledge, this is the first study investigating pharmacist involvement in telemedicine with HCT patients. Our preliminary results indicate patient satisfaction is high with both face-to-face and video appointments. Accrual to the video arm has been slow. We hypothesize enrollment is limited by restriction of patient enrollment to patients physically located in a state where the pharmacist is licensed at the time of the video visit.