NCI Grants Help Cancer Care Centers Study Telehealth Effectiveness

Three prominent cancer care centers have been awarded grants from the National Cancer Institute to examine how telehealth has helped improve care management and coordination during the coronavirus pandemic.

Jefferson Health’s Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia (SKCC), the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center in New Hampshire and the Stephenson Cancer Center at the University of Oklahoma will each study how the COIVID-19 crisis has impacted their connected health platforms, and will meet on a regular basis to discuss their research. The three are among 51 cancer centers across the country to earn the NCIs’ Comprehensive Cancer Center designation.

“Each cancer center serves a different patient population,” Karen E. Knudsen, MBA, PhD, EVP of Oncology Services and Enterprise Director of SKCC, said in a press release. “The centers’ collaboration will provide an opportunity to compare and analyze the impact of telehealth on ethnically and socioeconomically diverse populations in different geographic settings. We are thankful that the NCI recognized the fundamental importance of determining how telehealth has impacted cancer care across a wide demographic - toward the purpose of refinement and increasing access.”

The P30 supplemental grants issued by the NCI are designed to help care providers identify telehealth programs that improve care for a patient population at increased risk of serious complications from a COVID-19 infection.

This study will examine how telehealth has been used during the pandemic, as well as analyzing how connected health is helping patients and their caregivers deal with psychosocial distress and anxiety, both of which have increased during the pandemic. The study will also analyze how telehealth might help care providers dealing with stress and anxiety during this time.

At SKCC, telehealth visits for cancer patients skyrocketed from 456 in the three months before the outbreak (January through March 15) to 7,952 in the three months following. With in-person care limited to emergencies to reduce the risk of infection, providers and patients used virtual care platforms to manage care plans, follow-up visits, multidisciplinary visits and programs with the oncology social work team.

The cancer care center first used telehealth in 2017. A study of surgical oncology patients since then has found that post-operative telehealth visits help to reduce readmissions and emergency department visits as well as boost patient satisfaction.

At Dartmouth-Hitchcock, the $204,000 supplemental grant will go toward a study of how telehealth programs for cancer care can be sustained in a rural landscape.

"The ongoing telemedicine services provided by the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Center for Telehealth and Connected Care have increased almost 25-fold since the pandemic began, and many clinical care teams have transformed to mostly telemedicine appointments," Tracy Onega, MD, a cancer population specialist at the health system, said in a separate press release. "This shift of health care delivery to remote modes aligns with NCCC's ongoing catchment area work and provides a unique opportunity to study the impacts of expanded telemedicine capacity."

At Oklahoma’s Stephenson Cancer Center, the research will include analysis of an mHealth app created in May to help care providers monitor the well-being of cancer patients at home. Some 500 patients are now enrolled in a study of that app.

“Cancer patients receiving chemotherapy have reduced infection-fighting capabilities and, if they contract COVID-19, they are at higher risk of developing severe and life-threatening complications,” Katherine Moxley, MD, a gynecologic oncologist at Stephenson and co-principal investigator for the study, said in a release issued in May. “We are trying to create a mechanism for early identification of coronavirus symptoms and worsening disease.”

“I think the real-time symptom tracking enabled by this app will offer peace of mind to both patients and their oncologists,” Moxley added. “My patients and their family members are extremely anxious about their overall health and exposure risk right now. This app will give them a 24-hour lifeline that is applicable not only during the COVID-19 pandemic but also, in the future, to monitor and report significant side effects of chemotherapy. This is a valuable safety tool, especially for patients who live in rural Oklahoma and can’t easily travel to Stephenson Cancer Center or OU Medical Center for evaluation.”