Breast Surgeons' Perspectives of Telehealth Visits for Breast Clinic

Telemedicine has the potential to improve the quality of cancer care by improving access to care, but challenges with integrating telemedicine into surgical subspecialty practices exist. The objective of our study was to assess breast surgeons' use and perspectives of telemedicine.

Surgeon members of the American Society of Breast Surgeons anonymously completed a REDCap survey that elicited surgeons' characteristics, telehealth experience over time, and perceived importance of physical exam. Descriptive statistics summarized surgeon characteristics. Chi-squared tests assessed the association between telehealth use and surgeon characteristics, and between physical exam importance and likelihood of future telehealth use.

We included 249 respondents; 82% of surgeons had experience with telehealth, and those who did not (n = 45, 18%) were more likely to be older (p < 0.001). Surgeons most commonly used telehealth for surgical planning (64%) and postop (61%) visits and least commonly used telehealth for new cancer (30%) and second opinion (25%) visits. Surgeons reported that the inability to perform a physical exam was a moderate/extreme problem for most visit types, and this was significantly associated with future telehealth use (p < 0.05 for all visit types).

Although breast surgeons utilize telehealth, the inability to perform a physical exam was a significant limitation. Telehealth may have a role for visits where a physical exam is deemed less necessary. Future research should focus on patients' telehealth perspectives and the impact of a physical exam on surgical planning in the virtual setting.