Healthcare Teams & Teamwork Processes in Cancer Care Delivery
Background
Reducing cancer morbidity and mortality requires interactions between patients, caregivers, clinicians, and clinical staff from primary care and multiple specialties. Challenges to and breakdowns in communication and coordination across the cancer continuum are common, diminish patient outcomes, and contribute to patient, caregiver, and clinician workload. Improving the function of healthcare teams, defined as two or more people who interact to achieve shared patient care goals, was identified by the National Academy of Medicine
as a vital step toward delivering high-quality, well-coordinated care across the cancer care continuum for all people. The goal of the Healthcare Teams initiative is to advance a program of research that supports the development and implementation of evidence-based strategies that improve healthcare team functioning, care coordination, and cancer-related outcomes.
NCI is conducting several activities in service of building a such a program of research. This work aims to:
- Identify principles of team structure and teamwork processes that enhance the delivery of multidisciplinary cancer care
- Promote generation of evidence-based interventions to strengthen teaming and care coordination across the cancer care continuum, particularly among underserved populations and during care transitions
- Develop an interdisciplinary community of investigators whose research furthers an evidence-based understanding of team-based care structures and teamwork process that influence care coordination and equitable access to high quality cancer care and other collaborators working to facilitate adoption of findings into cancer care practice
Funding Opportunity Announcements
- Research Answers to National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Provocative Questions (PQs)
See PQ #8: What strategies improve and sustain coordination of comprehensive healthcare for underserved cancer patients with comorbidities? - Notice of special interest: NCI’s Interest in Research to Improve Interprofessional Teamwork and Coordination During Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment
NOT-CA-19-059 - Multilevel Interventions in Cancer Care Delivery: Follow-up to Abnormal Screening Tests
PA-17-495 (R01 Clinical Trial Optional) - Parent FOAs for investigator-initiated applications
- Cancer Prevention and Control Clinical Trials Grant Program
PAR-18-559 (R01 Clinical Trial Required) - NIH Research Project Grant
PA-18-484 (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
- Cancer Prevention and Control Clinical Trials Grant Program
Related Activities
- Healthcare Teams Cyber Discussion Series
- Healthcare Teams Learning Community
- NCI-ASCO Teams in Cancer Care Delivery
- Panel Discussion on Competencies for Teaming in Multiteam Systems
Related Publications & Reports
- Taplin SH, Weaver S, Salas E, Chollette V, Edwards HM, Bruinooge S, Kosty M. Reviewing cancer care team effectiveness. J Oncol Pract. 2015;11(3):239-46. Review. [View abstract]
- Taplin SH, Weaver S, Chollette VC, Bruinooge S, Marks L, Jacobs A, Schiff G, Stricker C, Salas E. Teams and teamwork during a cancer diagnosis: interdependency within and between teams. J Oncol Pract. 2015;11(3):231-8. Case study. [View abstract]
- Kosty MP, Hanley A, Chollette V, Bruinooge SS, Taplin SH. National Cancer Institute-American Society of Clinical Oncology Teams in Cancer Care Project. J Oncol Pract. 2016 Nov;12(11):955-958. [View abstract]
- Chollette V, Beasley DD, Abdiwahab E, Taplin S. Health information systems approach to managing task interdependence in cancer care teams. J Oncol Pract. 2017 Mar;13(3):154-156. [View abstract]
- Weaver SJ, Che X, Petersen LA, Hysong S. Unpacking care coordination issues through a multi-team system lens: A conceptual framework & systematic review. Med Care. 2018;56(3): 247-259. [View abstract]
- Weaver SJ, Jacobsen P. Cancer care coordination: Opportunities for healthcare delivery research. Translational Behavioral Medicine. In press, 2018.
- Rosen MA, DiazGranados D, Dietz A, Benishek LE, Thompson D, Pronovost PJ, Weaver SJ. Teamwork in healthcare: Key discoveries enabling safer, high quality care. American Psychologist. In Press Feb 2018.
- Prabhu Das I, Baker M, Altice C, Castro KM, Brandys B, Mitchell SA. Outcomes of multidisciplinary treatment planning in United States cancer care settings. Cancer. In press, 2018.