ENACCT Releases Final Report on the NCCTBC
“A Quality Improvement Program to Improve Cancer Clinical Trial Recruitment, Accrual, and Retention: Lessons Learned from the National Cancer Clinical Trials Pilot Breakthrough Collaborative”
Participation in cancer treatment clinical trials is a key measure for delivery of quality cancer care, yet participation rates in the U.S. remain under 3%. Although numerous challenges face the cancer clinical research system, including many well documented patient barriers, often overlooked are challenges related to ineffective operational procedures, community relationships, and physician-patient communication. The NCCTBC, sought to identify practical, patient-centered approaches to address these areas, improve quality of care, and increase accrual overall, and in particular for ethnic/racial minorities and people over 65.
The NCCTBC challenged 5 community oncology practices to use a systematic process to test small-scale measurable changes to organizational practices and policies to assess their impact on making improvements in accrual.