The National Cancer Institute (NCI) https://www.cancer.gov is awarding $23 million to four academic institutions to use to establish Centers of Excellence to conduct research on the role of telehealth in delivering cancer related healthcare.
During the pandemic, the use and availability of telehealth skyrocketed in primary and specialty care, including cancer care. However, little is understood about on how best to use and sustain telehealth in providing cancer-related care.
NCI’s Telehealth Research Centers of Excellence (TRACE) https://healthcaredelivery.cancer.gov/telehealth/trace.html initiative, is supported by the Cancer Moonshot initiative to accelerate the rate of progress against cancer.
The research being undertaken by the four centers will study the role of telehealth in prevention to screening and diagnosis to treatment and survivorship. Each Center will be led by an academic institution that has assembled diverse teams of researchers to conduct large trials in real world clinical settings.
The four funded centers include:
- The Telehealth Research and Innovation for Veterans with Cancer (THRIVE) Telehealth Research Center—The Center to be led by the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, will work with the VHA to examine how race and ethnicity, poverty, and rural residence affects the delivery of telehealth used for cancer care
- The Scalable Telehealth Cancer Care (STELLAR) Center—The Center to be led by Northwestern University will focus on using telehealth to extend health services to cancer survivors aimed at reducing risk behaviors such as smoking and physical inactivity
- The University of Pennsylvania Telehealth Research Center of Excellence (Penn TRACE)—The Center will use communication science and behavioral economics to compare the effectiveness of multiple telehealth strategies on shared decision-making for lung cancer screening and to improve timely access to comprehensive molecular testing for advanced lung cancer
- The Making Telehealth Delivery of Cancer Care at Home Effective and Safe (MATCHES) Telehealth Research Center—The Center to be led by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) will study the effectiveness of a remote monitoring system called MSK@Home for patients receiving systemic treatment for prostate and breast cancer
In addition to developing innovative ways to use telehealth in cancer care, the Centers will focus on identifying and addressing telehealth related disparities among vulnerable populations, including racial and ethnic groups, rural residents, older adults, people who are uninsured or low income, people who are socially isolated, and people who have limited digital literacy. All four centers are also committed to training the next generation of telehealth focused researchers.