The overarching goal of the Wisconsin NCI Community Oncology Research Program (WiNCORP) is to provide access to NCI-sponsored clinical trials to over 680,000 community members residing within its collective, largely rural, service area spanning most of the state of Wisconsin, upper Michigan and adjacent counties in northern Iowa and Southeastern Minnesota. WiNCORP represents a consortium between three legacy Wisconsin CCOPs in good standing (Gundersen Health Systems, St. Vincent Regional Cancer Center and Marshfield Clinic) who have historically met and exceeded accrual goals, accruing nearly 9,000 subjects in the program's history. WiNCORP's prior track record in accruals to NCI-sponsored clinical trials and strong historical track record in cancer care delivery research (CCDR) position WiNCORP to apply as a high performance NCORP site. This alignment of clinical and research infrastructure ideally positions WiNCORP to promote NCI's vision for NCORP by facilitating NCI trial access for a large, underrepresented patient population residing in predominantly rural-designated settings and engaging CCDR. Strategically, WiNCORP seeks expansion in a variety and number of NCI sponsored clinical trials including CCDR to increase both access and accrual to a rural population largely underrepresented in clinical trials thus addressing a disparity gap.
Specific aims to accomplish these goals include: 1) Conduct NCI phase l/ll, II and III cancer screening, prevention, symptom management, treatment, post-treatment, imaging and quality of life trials across the entire WiNCORP service area. Tasks include expanded educational strategies targeting patients, providers, and the community, with emphasis on minority populations and streamlining recruitment strategies across WiNCORP to promote accrual. 2) Facilitate conduct of Cancer Care Delivery Research (CCDR) across of integrated health care systems through establishment of an expanded research infrastructure. Tasks include establishment of care coordination and navigation teams to facilitate CCDR. 3) Facilitate accrual to molecular target driven trials. Tasks include engagement of institutional resources and newly established WiNCORP infrastructure to create opportunities for supporting this trial type.
The establishment of WiNCORP will provide opportunities for community members who live in Wisconsin, the upper Michigan peninsula, northeastern Iowa and southeastern Minnesota to access NCI-sponsored clinical trials. Establishment of WiNCORP is especially important to remove barriers to participation in cancer trials for members of these largely rural communities.
