Overview
The Center for Healthcare Innovation (CHI) embraces its mission of scaling digital solutions in health care beyond the walls of our organization. HN-STAR is a great example of how the center has partnered with Wake Forest NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) to develop a tool to assist with Head and Neck Cancer Survivorship Care Guidelines. This multi-state/multi-site study is led by Dr. Talya Salz (Memorial Sloan Kettering Comprehensive Cancer Center) and has worked closely with the Center to bring this digital tool to life.
Digital Tool Overview
This cloud web-based tool allows survivors to take a comprehensive survey of their current ailments, mood, unrelated illnesses to cancer and more, from the comfort of their homes. Prior to the survivors’ baseline visit with the Designated Clinician (DC) treating their cancer care, the DC will fill out a similar survey of the survivor. Upon meeting for their visit, the digital tool compiles the responses from both the survivor and the DC to create a Symptom Dashboard. This dashboard will allow for capturing additional information about the symptom and then allow a personalized resource list to be generated to assist with the system. This care plan is also provided to the care team so they can follow up with any additional questions. After the baseline visit, the survivor will fill out similar surveys every 3 months, allowing for the customized care plan to be updated with latest responses.
Currently, there are 82 patient participants enrolled from 13 clinical sites in 8 states, so the study is just starting to pick up its enrollment.
Future of HN-STAR
Being able to scale this tool is critical for the study as it expected to expand into a total of 21 outpatient oncology practices across the country and enrolling up to 350 post-treatment head and neck cancer survivors.