Cancer Implementation Science
A research program focused on applying implementation science to cancer prevention and control. Our goal is to support communities in Massachusetts in developing sustainable strategies and partnerships to make evidence-based cancer control more accessible.
Partners and Collaborators
The League represents over 50 CHC organizations across MA in rural and urban settings and serves as an information source on community-based health care to policymakers, opinion leaders and the media, and provides a wide range of technical assistance to health centers and communities. Over its nearly 50 years in existence, the League has demonstrated extensive experience and leadership in CHC support and oversight, establishing a robust, well-connected network of CHCs well-equipped to share and spread resources and best practices.
Our collaboration is a natural extension of the League’s existing infrastructure and stated goals: to provide technical assistance concerning the establishment and operation of CHCs; to serve as a forum for an exchange of information and approaches toward solving mutual problems among CHCs; to act as a central information source for CHCs and other community health groups; and to provide leadership to members in achieving their goals to promote accessible, high-quality, community-responsive health care.
Cheryl Clark, MD, ScD is Executive Director and Senior Vice President of MLCHC’s Institute for Health Equity Research, Evaluation and Policy. She serves as an MPI for Mass-ACCERT and co-leads the Research Measures, Methods and Data Management (RMMDM) core. Leslie Salas Karnes at the League co-led the first Mass-ACCERT Community Responsive Project on development of community advisory boards at community health centers.
The League supported ISCCCE in monitoring ongoing implementation activities and their impact on disparities, tracking outcomes of the rapid-cycle pilot projects, informing the development of future pilot projects, and assessing any unintended negative impacts on other health disparities initiatives across the CHCs.
Mass-ACCERT, MCPCRN and ISCCCE are rooted in partnership with community health centers (CHCs) located in Massachusetts. Partnering CHCs engage with us by co-leading research studies, conducting pilots, participating in learning community meetings, serving as study sites, contributing to paper writing, and engaging with investigators and staff in capacity-building projects.
Union Capital (UC) is a Massachusetts-based non-profit that connects residents with resources and to each other, to build their social capital, and to center their voice and power through civic engagement. Eric Leslie, the founder of UC, and Tito Martinez, UC’s Director of Springfield, are key partners leading the community level intervention activities of the Mass-ACCERT Gateway to Health research project.
UC engages members through their multilingual app to enable resource exchange including access to jobs, other resources and goods, and listings for community events. UC hosts Network Nights and Partner Resource Nights to share resources and information typically reaching 50-100 community members at each event.
The Kraft Center, led by Dr. Elsie Taveras, supports our Implementation Learning Community, as well as the Mass-ACCERT Gateway to Health Study and Community Responsive Pilot Program. The Kraft Center was also the home of the ISCCCE Implementation Team. The Implementation Team worked closely with the partnering community health centers to support their pilot study implementation efforts and build capacity.
The Kraft Center focuses on leading innovation in community health. The Center’s mission is to increase access to high quality health care for underserved populations. We do so by incubating and developing solutions to the most difficult, real-world community health problems; executing solutions locally; then spreading the best solutions with local and national partners.
The Kraft Center leverages its vast network of local and national partners to take on intractable clinical and public health problems by 1) rapidly mobilizing “boots on the ground” to provide evidence-based, patient-centered care; 2) establishing best practices and standards of care with robust programmatic evaluation and documentation; and 3) opening doors to policy makers and other stakeholders to educate and advocate for expansion of proven-effective community health solutions. Areas of focus include mobile health, addiction services, cancer care equity, obesity prevention and treatment, and mitigating the effects of social determinants of health for vulnerable families.
Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC), an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center, was founded to integrate and build upon the collective talent and resources of the Harvard cancer research community. Five Boston academic medical institutions—Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Children’s Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Massachusetts General Hospital—and two Harvard Schools—Harvard Medical School and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health—combined their scientific strengths to create a rich, collaborative environment that transcends institutional borders.
DF/HCC staff support the data ecosystem through Mass-ACCERT and MCPCRN. During ISCCCE, we designed an Evaluation Unit to connect research, clinical, and community-level data so that Center productivity and pilot study outcomes data can be effectively evaluated and collected, and so that we can build a robust data ecosystem for learning across pilot studies to implement innovative approaches in future pilot studies.
Harvard Catalyst is devoted to advancing human health by supporting and innovating clinical and translational science, and training the next generation of researchers.
As Harvard University’s Clinical and Translational Science Center, we serve the research community by offering courses and educational programs, research consulting, tools for study design and clinical trial collaboration, guidance on regulatory issues, and pilot funding for novel, high-impact projects – all available to trainees, fellows, and faculty.
Azara is a leading provider of data-driven reporting and analytics for the Community Health marketplace. Azara solutions empower Community Health Centers, Primary Care Associations and Health Center Controlled Networks to improve the quality and efficiency of care delivery through actionable data. The Azara Data Reporting and Visualization System (DRVS) helps the safety-net providers meet the demands of healthcare reform and achieve the goals of the Quadruple Aim. DRVS is used at more than 380 health centers in 31 states representing over 41 million lives.
As ISCCCE, Mass-ACCERT, and MCPCRN collaborators, Azara collects data from each practice, allows them to monitor their progress, and coordinates data sharing with the project team. Together we will also work to develop additional modules to support future pilot studies and CHC IS efforts.
The Mongan Institute is a community of leading scientists and programs in population and health care delivery science dedicated to transforming health care and achieving health equity locally, nationally, and globally. The Mongan Institute’s research and training program is based in the Department of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital with collaborations across MGH, Partners HealthCare, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH), and Harvard Medical School (HMS). Spanning data science to delivery science, and evaluative science to implementation science, the Mongan Institute is uniquely positioned to leverage the extraordinary research environment of MGH, as well as national and international collaborators, to solve the most intractable challenges in health care.
In addition to serving as ISCCCE pilot investigators, the Mongan Institute’s director, Dr. Bartels, and other researchers supported the creation of an innovative Methods Unit to address methodologic challenges in IS focused on health equity and create capacity for addressing on-going methodologic challenges. This includes:
- conducting pilot studies to address critical methodological areas in equity-focused IS research, including adaptation, cost-effectiveness of implementation strategies, and missing EHR data;
- developing and supporting an Implementation Research Methods Incubator (IRMI) to identify additional methodological challenges and support the development of potential solutions; and
- disseminating methodological advances by developing equity-focused IS methods resource toolkits for broad dissemination.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock (D-HH) serves a population of 1.9 millions patients across northern New England and provides access to 1,800 providers in almost every area of medicine, delivering care at its flagship hospital Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH. D-HH is New Hampshire’s only academic health system and is a clinical partner to the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College. D-HH physicians and researchers collaborate with Geisel School of Medicine scientists and faculty as well as other leading health care organizations to develop new treatments at the cutting edge of medical practice bringing the latest medical discoveries to the patient.
Dr. Kelly Aschbrenner, Associate Professor at Geisel School of Medicine and Senior Scientist in the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health System, served as an ISCCCE pilot investigator and led the Methods Unit, including:
- conducting pilot studies to address critical methodological areas in equity-focused IS research, including adaptation, cost-effectiveness of implementation strategies, and missing electronic health record (EHR) data;
- developing and supporting an Implementation Research Methods Incubator (IRMI) to identify additional methodological challenges and support the development of potential solutions; and
- disseminating methodological advances by developing equity-focused IS methods resource toolkits for broad dissemination
