Creating An Outreach Network Across NC
UNC researchers and clinicians are partnering with community physicians and clinics across North Carolina to move research into practice and provide citizens with the best cancer services available. These partnerships will help translate laboratory discoveries into improved care for individual patients as well as the population at large, through clinical trials, prevention, survivorship, and screening programs.
These collaborations will complement a network of physicians and centers with whom UNC will establish research agreements to improve access to enrollment of patients onto clinical trials throughout the State, explained Dr. Thomas Shea, professor of medicine in the UNC School of Medicine, and UNC Lineberger associate director of clinical outreach. "This network will ensure a higher quality of care for more patients while allowing physician scientists and practicing community oncologists to collaborate in testing novel therapeutics that will lead the way for better outcomes in the future. It will also allow more patients to participate in these trials that will make new and, we hope, better, treatments more widely available."
One special focus of this effort is the collaboration with ECU to further their development of a strong cancer program for eastern North Carolina. Additionally, a pilot project has begun with patient "navigators," health care professionals who will serve as community facilitators for cancer care in Dare County. They will help individual patients to find physicians and support services while also working with existing community-based groups to develop programs in cancer screening and education. While these Dare County navigators will be UNC employees, they will not be linked exclusively with UNC programs. Instead they will be expected to access the best available resources for an individual patient as well as help to identify where the need might exist for new programs. The hope is that this pilot program will serve as a model for other communities who wish to enhance the quality of their cancer services.