Program 10 Cancer Care Delivery Research

Cancer Care Delivery Research Program Project Summary / Abstract The mission of the Cancer Care Delivery Research (CCDR) Program is to facilitate and conduct research that ensures the delivery of high-quality, patient-centered care to individuals with all types of cancer. Advances in cancer diagnosis, screening, prevention, and treatment are usually tested and reported in defined and relatively small groups of research subjects. Members of the CCDR Program measure the extent to which interventions are effective when the reported advances are scaled population-wide. The Program develops, refines, tests, and implements strategies to maximize the impact of discoveries for all populations. The Program has 66 members (56 primary and 10 secondary), representing all seven DF/HCC institutions and 12 academic departments. In 2019, peer-reviewed grant funding attributed to the Program was $5.1 million in direct costs from the NCI and $7.7 million from other sponsors. During the current funding period, primary CCDR members published 1,336 cancer relevant papers. Of these, 25% were inter-institutional, 23% were intra-programmatic, and 39% were inter-programmatic collaborations between two or more DF/HCC members. CCDR’s emphasis on improving the experience, efficiency, and equity of cancer care ensures that innovations in cancer treatment and care realize their full potential throughout populations and care settings. To meet the Program mission, CCDR members have built successful collaborations, developed new research methods, constructed data sources, and trained the next generation of clinical investigators. Our Specific Aims for the next CCSG funding period are to: 1) Assess the quality, effectiveness, and value of new and established interventions to treat cancer, with an emphasis on precision medicine by (a) designing clinical informatics strategies to improve cancer care delivery and (b) promoting capacity for delivering precision medicine; 2) Evaluate patient-centered outcomes of cancer care, including health-related quality of life and symptom burden by developing tools to assess the patient experience; 3) Assess the impact of healthcare reform, including alternative delivery, coverage, and reimbursement systems on cancer screening, diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes; and 4) Develop and test strategies to improve palliative and end of life care (EOL) experiences for advanced cancer patients and their families.