South Middlesex Times

A team of researchers from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Rutgers Cancer Institute has been awarded a five-year, $4.83 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to support efforts in coordinating care for cancer survivors managing cardiovascular risks.

Led by Denalee M. O’Malley, an assistant professor and social work researcher in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and a research member of Rutgers Cancer Institute, the study builds on more than 15 years of investigation into the challenges of integrating primary care in survivorship care. The team is one of four sites nationally to receive funding this year as part of the NCI’s initiative to address primary care needs of cancer survivors.

“For many cancer survivors, the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease is greater than their risk of dying from cancer,” O’Malley said. “Therefore, it is critical that we emphasize a whole-patient perspective during cancer treatment and ensure that cardiovascular disease risks that are present are managed by primary care throughout the cancer care experience.”

The majority of cancer survivors in the U.S. have cardiovascular disease risk factors and manage at least one chronic condition in addition to their cancer, making them “complex cancer survivors.” Cancer survivors have an eightfold risk of developing cardiovascular disease in their lifetime compared with those without a history of cancer, O’Malley said.

The team includes Jeanne M. Ferrante, a professor of family medicine and community health at the medical school and director of the New Jersey Primary Care Research Network, and Shawna V. Hudson, a professor and senior associate dean for population health research at the medical school and vice chancellor for dissemination and implementation science at Rutgers Health. Ferrante and Hudson also are research members of Rutgers Cancer Institute.

Their project, titled ACCESS-PC: Advancing Care Coordination to Enhance Shared Care for Complex Survivors in Primary Care, will refine and test the implementation of a health system intervention to improve cancer patients’ connections with primary care to reduce their cardiovascular risks.

“This important research comes at a pivotal time as we continue to advance cancer treatments and improve survival rates,” said Steven K. Libutti, director of Rutgers Cancer Institute and senior vice president of oncology services at RWJBarnabas Health. “As New Jersey’s only NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, we are committed to advancing the science of cancer and continuing to improve the quality-of-life for millions living with the disease.”

Despite evidence-based clinical guidelines available to manage cardiovascular disease risks, many cancer patients miss or forego essential care for these chronic conditions during treatment. The ACCESS-PC project seeks to address this gap by promoting a shared-care model where primary care and cancer clinicians collaboratively manage patient health.

Researchers aim to transform survivorship care in the United States by enhancing shared-care delivery models – when two or more clinicians from different specialties treat the same patient. This integration is expected to significantly improve cardiovascular risk management among complex survivors, ultimately improving long-term health outcomes.

To achieve this goal, researchers will work with diverse survivors, primary care physicians, clinicians at Rutgers Cancer Institute, Rutgers Health, and RWJBarnabas Health to tailor-test an intervention called Primary Care Connect (PC2). PC2 standardizes communication protocols between teams providing patient education about shared-care importance starting at diagnosis.

The study will test clinical effectiveness through randomized controlled trials on primary connection outcomes including chronic disease management patient-reported results evaluating PC2's sustainability within systems addressing multiple adoption factors influencing shared-care approaches.

The grant runs through April 30th 2029.