Will Telemedicine Improve My Quality of Life with CLL?

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Will Telemedicine Improve My Quality of Life with CLL? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

How do chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients and care partners feel about the impact of telemedicine on quality of life? Watch as a CLL patient and care partner, Bob and Susan, discuss how easier access to blood test results affects patient emotions before and during remote office visits.

See More From the CLL TelemEDucation Empowerment Resource Center

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Will Telemedicine Be a Long-Term Survivorship Tool for CLL Patients?

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What CLL Symptoms Can Be Monitored via Telemedicine?

Transcript:

Susan Bottega: 

The role of telemed in terms of survivorship I think is a very, very interesting subject. CLL patients are living a very long life these days with the onset of the novel agents that are coming out. Quality of life becomes a very, very important subject for CLL patients. So much of their quality of life is diminished by the visits that they have to make into doctors’ offices.

The anguish that they spend the day before, the sleepless night that accompanies the doctor’s visit. I think that this is extremely important. You’re looking very possibly of at least two days taken out of your life, and if you’re making these visits on a monthly basis or bi-monthly basis or even tri-monthly basis, that’s a long period of time to take out of the span of your lifetime. And as we’re living longer, this becomes more and more important.

You want to have that quality of life, you want to be able to go on vacations. Your vacations can’t be postponed because you have a doctor’s appointment looming in the future. You can take your computer right along on vacation with you and share your vacation with your doctor.

Bob Bottega:

I like that.

Susan Bottega:

I think the anguish that you feel about blood tests is diminished by it. You don’t have to wait to get the results of your blood tests, your blood tests pop right up on your patient portal. You don’t have to sit there and wait in a doctor’s office until you see those results.

Once you see your doctor, you’ve already got your results and you’re calm about it, you’re relaxed because you know what the results are and you can discuss them without having to deal with the anxiety that comes with hearing, “Okay, my white blood cell count has gone up considerably, so how do I calm myself down to discuss this intelligently at this point in time when I’m emotionally so upset over it?” I think these are very, very important things about the quality of your life. How about you, Bob?

Bob Bottega:

I think you said it all.

Susan Bottega:

Don’t I always? (laughter)

Will Telemedicine Be a Long-Term Survivorship Tool for CLL Patients?

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Will Telemedicine Be a Long-Term Survivorship Tool for CLL Patients? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

With telemedicine as a part of the chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) toolkit, what will its role be in the future? Watch as CLL expert Dr. John Pagel shares his viewpoint of how telemedicine will play into long-term survivorship care for patients.

See More From the CLL TelemEDucation Empowerment Resource Center

Related Resources:

 

What CLL Population Will Benefit Most From Telemedicine?

Is Remote Monitoring for CLL Patients on CAR T Therapy the Future?

What CLL Symptoms Can Be Monitored via Telemedicine?
 

Transcript:

Stephanie Chuang: 

We really haven’t scratched the surface, it seems, when it comes to using telemedicine as a long-term survivorship tool. So for the sub-group of CLL patients who never need treatment, does telemedicine still bring any major advantages?

Dr. John Pagel:

There are people, and it’s not uncommon, who actually never even get treated. I’ve had people in my clinic who have had CLL diagnosed and never treated for over 20 years or more. It does happen. And those people often can be managed with their primary care physician, even though it’s good to have a CLL focused clinician, an oncologist or even expert in their back pocket, but they may only need to have that televisit with that expert or oncologist once a year. So those are the ideal kind of patients who it’s not great to drag them in if there’s nothing going on with them, but they still need to be evaluated and have a discussion about what’s happening, at a minimum once a year in many cases. 

What CLL Symptoms Can Be Monitored via Telemedicine?

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What CLL Symptoms Can Be Monitored via Telemedicine? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

For chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients, some symptoms can be monitored via telemedicine, while other symptoms are best to check in-person. Watch as CLL expert Dr. John Pagel discusses getting optimal care by CLL symptom type.

See More From the CLL TelemEDucation Empowerment Resource Center

Related Resources:

 

What CLL Population Will Benefit Most From Telemedicine?

Is Remote Monitoring for CLL Patients on CAR T Therapy the Future?

Will Telemedicine Be Part of Routine Management for CLL?
 

Transcript:

Stephanie Chuang: 

There are CLL patients on specific treatment protocols and those who need follow-up for potential adverse effects of treatment compliance and, of course, progress. And so the question is, how effective of a tool is telemedicine for this group?

Dr. John Pagel: 

I’ve been very impressed that we can meet the needs of patients, we can meet the needs for clinical trials. Clinical trials have really adopted and been flexible with the idea of being able to do telemedicine in a large degree because of COVID in CLL. And I would say clearly that a conversation and close discussion with the physician’s critically important, it comes back to what we mentioned specifically, it’s about education. Patients need to understand that if they’re not feeling well, meaning, they’re having drenching night sweats or they’re losing weight or they’re having pain, those aren’t things to sit back and just wait for your telemedicine visit, they need to contact the physician and to be able to be seen urgently or quickly if needed. 

Telemedicine is going to be a bridge to make that happen, but in general, those are people that are in a bit of a different class of what we’re discussing here today. So monitoring disease, taking care of people with regard to assessments of their blood counts can be done all again through telemedicine, but more acute problems, those patients do, of course, need to be seen. 

Is Remote Monitoring for CLL Patients on CAR T Therapy the Future?

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Is Remote Monitoring for CLL Patients on CAR T Therapy the Future? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Will telemedicine play a greater role in CAR T remote monitoring and help some CLL patients avoid long hospital stays? Learn how harnessing technology could optimize care for CAR T patients.

See More From the CLL TelemEDucation Empowerment Resource Center

Related Resources:

 

What CLL Population Will Benefit Most From Telemedicine?

How Will Telemedicine Impact Time-Limited Therapy in CLL?

Will Telemedicine Be Part of Routine Management for CLL?
 

Transcript:

Stephanie: 

There’s excitement around telemedicine and CAR T, so specifically remotely monitoring CAR T to help avoid patients having to deal with long hospital stays. Is this the future?

Dr. John Pagel: 

It’s clearly the future. So what you’re alluding to, of course, is a way that we are now doing to trick a patient’s own immune system cells into targeting and fighting the cancer, and of course, we’re talking about CLL here. It’s a revolutionary treatment in CLL, we still have quite a ways to go, we are doing a lot of important trials and advancing the field, but we don’t have an approved approach in CLL yet, but we will. No doubt. And the goal of that therapy is not just to eradicate the disease and keep it from coming back, but it’s also to do it in a very safe and actually appropriate way, and that’s as an outpatient.

Those patients clearly have risk for an adverse event or a side effect, that can be problematic. So they have to be in close contact with a physician and sometimes they’re required to be very close to the treating center for prolonged periods of time. Most of the time that’s very uneventful. So it’s a major disruption to a patient’s life. You could imagine that you’re traveling hundreds of miles to go to a center, and not just go to a center that provides the CAR T-cell therapy, but is actually monitoring you for a month or more, so you’re away from home for a long time, living in a hotel, that’s a problem.

Telemedicine is a way to get around that. We will evolve to being able to treat patients, get them home, and then telemedicine will work where the visits can be done in a very expeditious manner, and again, in a very appropriate way so that that will also reduce the interactions away from home, and as we said cost of care as well.