Clinical Practice Network

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT (CLINICAL PRACTICE NETWORK) The objective of the University of Pennsylvania Telehealth Research Center in Cancer Care (Penn TRC) Clinical Practice Network is to integrate telehealth research with clinical care across the cancer care continuum, while ensuring access to care among patients who experience health disparities or the digital

divide. To do this, the Clinical Practice Network will provide leadership and access to Penn Medicine’s clinical ecosystem – including patients, physicians and other clinical personnel, clinical sites, telehealth capacity, and clinical informatics and data infrastructure – to ensure successful completion of the Center’s planned pragmatic

trial, pilot projects, and future research and dissemination. The Clinical Practice Network will provide the ideal environment in which to generate a robust evidence base for patient-centered, sustainable telehealth models of cancer care delivery, while also serving as a model for other systems across the country. We focus on lung

cancer as an exemplar model for telehealth across the care continuum, from screening to treatment to survivorship. Penn Medicine serves a diverse patient population in the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area, providing an ideal setting to test the effectiveness and equity of telehealth strategies and to identify how to

integrate optimally and sustain telehealth across the cancer care continuum. The Clinical Practice Network will be an integrated and interdisciplinary effort embedded within the health system at Penn Medicine, with academic and community clinical sites spanning primary care and oncology care, all served by a common lung

cancer screening program. Collectively, participating clinical sites serve more than 400,000 patients per year. The Clinical Practice Network’s specific aims are to: 1) Provide access to a network of primary care, cancer screening, and oncology clinical sites serving a diverse patient population; 2) Provide access to the telehealth,

clinical informatics, and data infrastructure needed to support the execution of the pragmatic trial and pilot projects across the Clinical Practice Network; and 3) Provide leadership and integration of Penn TRC activities across all components within the Clinical Practice Network and between the Clinical Practice Network and all

other components of the Penn TRC. Taken together, these aims ensure Penn TRC researchers will have the requisite access to clinical sites and personnel, a diverse and large patient population, and the telehealth, clinical informatics, and data infrastructure needed to implement and evaluate the telehealth strategies

proposed in the Pragmatic Trial and pilot projects. Achieving these aims will ensure the Penn TRC is successful in improving cancer care effectiveness and equity through telehealth, communication science, and behavioral economics and disseminating evidence-based telehealth models of cancer care delivery.