Patient-reported experience with an immunotherapy telehealth platform.

Abstract

1654 Background: The Making Teleheath Delivery of Cancer Care at Home Effective and Safe for Immunotherapy (MATCHES-IO) intervention seeks to improve the efficiency and patient experience for those treated with single agent pembrolizumab. Because pembrolizumab is administered as an outpatient infusion every 3-weeks, patients require up to 18 clinic visits per year to receive treatment, which is arduous. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA granted accelerated approval for an extended interval dosing administered every 6 weeks, but despite this approval every 3-week dosing remains the standard (65% of prescriptions) as clinicians perceive this schedule enables them to identify and manage toxicity early. Telehealth may be the impetus to change the standard to the more convenient 6-week in person schedule, but evidence is needed. Methods: We conducted a single arm pragmatic trial to evaluate the efficiency and patient experience of a telehealth immunotherapy platform (MATCHES-IO) in patients with non-small cell lung, genitourinary, or melanoma cancers receiving single agent pembrolizumab. MATCHES-IO evaluates whether in-person visits for pembrolizumab therapy q6wk (rather than q3wk) with interim telehealth toxicity checks between in-person treatments for the first six months of therapy is more efficient and enhances patient experience relative to the standard q3wk infusion visits. The components of the platform include clinician-patient virtual visits, labs at home, biometric devices at home for vital sign monitoring, and electronic patient-reported outcomes to monitor for common IO-related toxicities. Patient experience was assessed after each MATCHES-IO televisit for up to two televisits. We measured experience with a patient experience survey that included how likely are they to recommend this intervention to similar patients (scale 0-10). Results: Between July 2023 and January 2025, 59 patients were enrolled, median age 69 (range 25–85), 81.5% White, 11.1% Black, 7.4% Asian, and 61.1% male. Cancer types included thoracic (50.9% of patients), genitourinary (30.5%), and melanoma (18.6%). 45 patients (76.3%) have completed a MATCHES-IO televisit and completed a patient experience survey. The median score for likelihood to recommend was 10 (range 4-10). 97.8% patients perceived a benefit to the MATCH-IO televisit including saved time (82.2% of respondents), patient convenience (71.1%), convenience for caregiver/family (44.4%), saved money (44.4%), and better monitoring of cancer and treatment (24.4%). 57.8% of patients found the at home visit less stressful than the in-person visit. Conclusions: Patients endorsed an enhanced experience with an immunotherapy telehealth platform for extended dosing of pembrolizumab. Further follow-up is needed to confirm these experience findings and determine whether this platform improved efficiency through fewer in-person visits.