Center for Innovation in Point of Care Technologies for the Future of Cancer Care

描述(由申请人提供)：将癌症治疗从专门中心转移到当地诊所或家庭护理可以显著降低医疗成本。通常情况下，患者必须长途跋涉才能在癌症中心接受治疗。在发展中国家资源匮乏的情况下，癌症治疗可能根本没有任何选择。手术治疗有感染风险，而且在许多地方，没有足够的外科医生来治疗所有需要治疗的患者。像靶向超声和基于光的治疗这样的技术可以让培训较少的提供者以更少的钱治疗更多的患者。在两次治疗之间在家监测化疗患者的工具可以消除旅行和办公室访问。收集高危人群数据的移动卫生战略可能导致直接影响癌症筛查率的新干预措施。为了解决这些问题，我们将成立一个综合中心，专注于癌症治疗、筛查、诊断和监测的创新护理点技术的识别、原型制作和早期临床评估。我们计划利用波士顿大学现有的基础设施，从临床需求、市场需求、设置适当性和商业化战略方面评估早期技术。我们建立了一支由工程师、临床医生、公共卫生从业人员和技术转移专家组成的综合多学科团队。该团队将评估处于不同开发阶段的技术在一系列初级保健和非传统保健环境中的适用性。此外，我们会考虑病人和病人权益倡导者的需要，让这些团体的代表加入我们的外间顾问委员会，并参与培训和外展活动。该中心将包括行政核心、临床需求评估和影响分析核心、培训核心和原型开发和测试核心，分为阿尔法核心和贝塔核心两部分，根据技术开发阶段的不同，这两个核心都将提供给中心项目。

DESCRIPTION (Provided by the Applicant): Moving cancer treatments out of specialized centers and into local clinics or home care could significantly lower healthcare costs. Often patients have to travel large distances to receive treatments at cancer centers. In low resource settings in the developing world, there may not be any options at all for cancer treatment. Surgical treatments carry infection risks and in many places there are not enough surgeons to treat all of the patients in need. Technologies like targeted ultrasound and light based treatments could allow providers with less training to treat more patients for less money. Tools for monitoring chemotherapy patients at home between treatments could eliminate travel and office visits. Mobile health strategies for collecting data about high-risk populations could lead o new interventions to directly impact cancer screening rates. To address these issues, we will form an integrated Center focused on the identification, prototyping and early clinical assessment of innovative point of care technologies for the treatment, screening, diagnosis and monitoring of cancers. We plan to leverage the existing infrastructure at Boston University to assess early stage technologies in terms of clinical needs, market demands, setting appropriateness and commercialization strategies. We have built an integrated multidisciplinary team consisting of engineers, clinicians, public health practitioners, and technology transfer experts. This team will evaluate technologies in various stages of development for their suitability across a range of primary care and non-traditional healthcare settings. Further, we wil take under advisement the needs of patients and patient advocates by including representatives from these groups on our external advisory board and in training and outreach activities. The Center will comprise an Administrative Core, a Clinical Needs Assessment and Impact Analysis Core, a Training Core and a Prototype Development and Testing Core divided into two parts, the Alpha and Beta Cores, that will both be available to Center projects, depending on the stage of technology development.