Study to test model of cancer survivorship care in primary care practices
An NCI-funded project aims to support and improve cancer survivorship care provided by primary care physicians.
“The patient is the locus of control,” Jennifer Klemp, PhD, MPH, MS, principal investigator of Kansurvive, a study testing a model of survivorship care in rural practices, said in her presentation during the virtual Cancer Center Survivorship Research Forum. “If we want them to participate in self-management, we need to have an effective system that surrounds them. Our goal for this project is to help providers and their teams improve the management and follow-up of cancer survivors.”
According to the Kansurvive website, the project’s goals are to evaluate gaps in the continuum of care; enable evidence-based care using Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes), its telementoring curriculum; and map the workflow/data capabilities of rural practices. Currently, 72% of cancer survivors in Kansas receive their survivorship care through primary care providers.
“This is an important project, because we are testing some things that I think will be generalizable,” said Klemp, who also serves as professor and director of cancer survivorship at The University of Kansas Cancer Center. “We need to map out the continuum of care to make sure it is functional and that it benefits cancer survivors.”
Klemp said Kansurvive’s first phase includes structured workflow evaluations to identify gaps in care while determining what ongoing training is needed to implement high-quality survivorship care in rural primary care practices. These data will then be integrated into the Project ECHO curriculum. In the second phase, Kansurvive will test the ECHO intervention and ascertain barriers to its implementation.
The project also will focus on delineating the roles of primary care providers and oncologists and will emphasize the importance of risk stratification when following cancer survivors. Kansurvive currently is focused on improving care provided to patients with breast, colorectal, prostate and lung cancers.
“We have made [the intervention] very user-friendly and survey-based, as nonintrusive as possible,” Klemp said. “We’re trying to take best practices for managing a cancer survivor and match them with best practices in primary care.”
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Klemp J. Engaging the cancer survivor in self-management: A researcher’s perspective. Presented at: Cancer Center Survivorship Research Forum (virtual meeting); April 15-16, 2021.
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