Effectiveness of Building a Telehealth Platform for Comprehensive Live-fed Real-World Data of Lung Cancer (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Telehealth has emerged as an effective channel providing outpatient services in many countries. However, majority telehealth systems focus on operational functions offering sectional patient journey at the most. How to achieve comprehensive yet longitudinal real-world data by taking advantage of telehealth is yet to be studied. OBJECTIVE The primary purpose of this study is to understand the feasibility and benefits of building a live-fed longitudinal lung cancer real-world data platform supplemental to hospital electronic medical records systems. METHODS A telehealth platform was built and launched for physician and patient registration. Real-world data was collected and curated using a comprehensive data model. Patient stratification was performed directly from the database for statistical analysis. RESULTS Over a period of 15 months, 16035 unique users (13888 patients, 1539 friends and family members, 608 physicians) were registered. 232195 messages including EMRs and ePROs were curated and entered in the database, using medical records from 9907 patients as a basis. Comprehensive and longitudinal diagnosis and treatment data were established for 46% of the patients at the time of writing. Patient demographics from the database show the current treatment journey and practices of lung cancer in China. CONCLUSIONS This study indicates that a well-designed telehealth platform is feasible to acquire live- fed longitudinal real-world data, which further empowers physicians to effectively manage patients’ treatments and engagement.