Health Care Access Committee

Purpose

The charge of the NRG Health Care Access Committee (HCA) is to understand and eliminate differences in health care access to improve cancer care and outcomes for affected populations in NCI National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) and NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) clinical trials.

HCA Committee works in close collaboration with NRG NCORP CPCR and CCDR to co-develop health care access-focused protocols as appropriate. The HCA Committee is a shared committee between NRG NCORP and NRG Oncology NCTN. The HCA Committee is comprised of multidisciplinary scientists with expertise in each of the focus areas as well as behavioral health, symptom management, community engagement, and social determinants of health.

The HCA Committee, through its associated special interest groups (SIGs), aims to achieve the following overarching goals:

• Develop research concepts and clinical trial protocols that address health care access difficulties experienced by different groups, older adults, people living in rural communities, and sex-specific groups.
• Enhance health care access in accrual of groups traditionally affected by access challenges in oncology clinical trials through developing and ongoing NRG Oncology NCTN and NCORP clinical trials.
• Promote, educate, and mentor the next generation of researchers interested in health care access within NRG Oncology, NCORP, and the oncology clinical trial ecosystem.

Meeting Frequency
The HCA Committee meets at the NRG Oncology semi-annual meetings. These meetings are open to all who attend the NRG meetings.

The committee’s Special Interest Groups (SIG) meet separately throughout the year.

• Older Adult- monthly
• Research Concept Development (RCD) -monthly
• Rural -every other month
• Education & Advancement -monthly

Health Care Access Committee Liaisons:

The high-quality results produced through NRG Oncology are a direct outcome of the collaboration between many modalities and subject matter experts. As such, each protocol-generating committee has modality liaisons whose responsibility is to represent their area of expertise, share their knowledge and provide feedback for developing protocols and monitoring ongoing research to ensure the outcomes of our research is highly relevant, feasible, and impactful.

Liaisons are appointed to the core committee and provided
access to meetings and related materials. The primary liaison is a voting
member of the committee and their role includes participation to

• Provide input to the scientific committee, notably as it relates to NCORP goals
  (cancer prevention/control, cancer care delivery and health care access).
• Solicit and develop concepts and protocols as well as secondary analyses, assuring
  that strategies for inclusion and recruitment of multidisciplinary
  populations are emphasized.
• Serve as a concept reviewer as needed.

NCORP Pilot Projects Funded

HDC Pilot Concepts:
The HCA Committee participates in reviewing and approving concepts related to the health care access and the HCA Committee’s goals within NRG Oncology and NRG-NCORP.

Health Care Access Fellowship Program

The HCA Committee engages in reviewing applicants, concepts, as well as providing mentorship and feedback related to the development, review, and guidance for health care access implementation plans for the respective concepts under the program. This is accomplished through presentation to the applicable HCA Special Interest Group, and/or HCA Committee semiannual meetings, individual consultations, and could include a formal mentor assignment.