COVID-19 Impacts on Cancer Care Management, Patient Experience and Care Costs

Using real-world data, the goals of this project are to understand the impacts of COVID-19 on (1) cancer care management, including detection, diagnosis and treatment of cancer, (2) patient-reported experience, and (3) costs of cancer care.

Specific Aims are:

Aim 1: Examine how cancer care is delivered in the ongoing COVID period. We will examine the patterns of care (telemedicine use and care disruption/recovery) over time following California’s shelter-in-place order and the subphases in the ongoing COVID period, and by patient characteristics (age, sex, race/ethnicity, language, cancer type, comorbidity, socioeconomic status).

Aim 2: Understand the impact of COVID-19 on patient experiences with and preferences for care. We will compare patient experience with care across patient groups: (a) between pre-COVID and ongoing COVID periods, and (b) between in-person visits and telemedicine visits.

Aim 3: Assess the economic impacts of COVID-19 in cancer care management. We will examine whether the distribution of cancer stage at diagnosis is shifted in the ongoing COVID period, with potential delay in care. We will compare subsequent costs of care between the two periods.

With Monique de Bruin, M.D., MPH, as physician lead, John K. Chan, M.D., Natalia Colocci, M.D., Ph.D., and Allison W. Kurian M.D., MSc, serve as physician advisors.

Principal Investigator

Su-Ying Liang, Ph.D.

Co-Investigator(s)

Cheryl Stults, Ph.D., Monique de Bruin, M.D., MPH 

Funder

UC Office of the President, Research Grants Program Office