Baptist Cancer Center earns $2.1 million research award

The Baptist Cancer Center received a national research award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

The three-year, $2.1 million award will be used to study the effectiveness of a multidisciplinary model of care for lung cancer patients. Multidisciplinary care involves the coordinated interaction of patients with all the key medical specialists involved in the process of diagnosing, staging and treating lung cancer in one place, at the same time, as early as possible in the process.

To measure the model’s effectiveness, the Baptist Cancer Center has assembled a team of researchers who will get feedback from key stakeholders in lung cancer care, including patients, family members, physicians, nurses, health care administrators and health insurance executives. Researchers will use the feedback to design a multidisciplinary care program that will be evaluated with major benchmarks developed from the feedback of the key stakeholders. By this means, the level of coordination of care for lung cancer patients, patients’ (and their family members’) overall experience of the care delivery process, and the quality and appropriateness of care will be tracked to measure the success of the program. Finally, the experience and health outcomes of patients and their families who experience care within and outside the multidisciplinary care environment will be compared. Dr. Raymond Osarogiagbon, an oncologist with the Baptist Cancer Center, is the Principal Investigator of the study.

“This is a large, communitywide effort that involves everyone from doctors and patients to researchers and community leaders,” said Osarogiagbon. “All of us are dedicated to raising the overall quality of lung cancer care, making it as close to optimal as possible.”