Comprehensive biopsychosocial screening, integrated triage, patient/caregiver education, and follow-up has the potential to be central to successful patient-centered care across the cancer treatment trajectory. The proposed R-25E training research will address the pressing need for comprehensive biopsychosocial screening implementation that seeks to identify barriers and resources critical to treatment adherence and quality of life. By prospectively identifying the patient's physical, psychosocial, spiritual, finacial, and practical problems, screening optimizes communication among the patient, family, and healthcare team. Comprehensive biopsychosocial screening guidelines have been endorsed by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and new accreditation standards from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Commission on Cancer (CoC). However, these comprehensive biopsychosocial screening guidelines are not widely implemented. The training program will be offered nine times during the five-year tenure of the award, and will train a total of 360 cancer healthcare professionals (including mental health professionals, physicians, nurses, and administrators) in how to implement comprehensive biopsychosocial screening programs. The faculty is comprised of 14 leaders in the field with hands-on experience in the implementations of comprehensive biopsychosocial screening. The program will include: 10 pre-workshop e-learning webinars (totaling six hours), two pre-workshop faculty-trainee conference calls, a two day skills-based workshop at City of Hope (COH) incorporating faculty-led interactive clinical experiences and supervised participation in the clinical implementation of a comprehensive biopsychosocial screening program at COH, four post-workshop e-learning webinars (totaling three hours), eight post-workshop faculty-trainee conference calls, one post-workshop faculty-institutional implementation conference call (4-6 months post training) and a web-based Discussion Board during the tenure of the award and the year following. The goal of the workshop is for trainees to understand and be able to implement all aspects of comprehensive screening development. Guided by the small-group learning model and by the by Grol et al's Institutional Change Model, faculty will discuss topics that are critical to implementing a comprehensive screening program. Overall Goals: 1. To develop and apply a curriculum to implement high-quality comprehensive screening programs by conducting webinars and training workshops for healthcare and administrative professionals; 2. To support ongoing training and provide networking opportunities for trainees by conducting ten faculty-trainee telephone conference-calls, one post-workshop faculty-institutional implementation conference call (4-6 months post training) and by providing trainees and faculty with access to an online Discussion Board during the tenure of the program and for one year afterwards; and 3. To assess the effectiveness of the training program, evaluations will be conducted at 12 and 18 months following each workshop to determine: trainee knowledge gained, satisfaction, and goal achievement; and trainees' implementation of a screening program at their respective institutions.
Many cancer patients report that it can be difficult to communicate their ongoing concerns, with their doctors and other members of the healthcare team. Screening gives patients the opportunity to tell the doctor and healthcare team about any physical, psychological, social and family, spiritual, financial or other concerns that may impact their care. This program will teach doctors, nurses, business administrators, psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers the skills they need to better implement screening programs in their home settings.
