SBIR-STTR Award

Locus will develop a scalable, clinician-configurable, HIPAA-compliant Saas platform called the Cancer Navigation Platform ("Platform"). The long-term goal of the effort is to provide timely cancer care and improve patient outcomes. The short-term goals are to develop, deploy and evaluate a Platform that: 1) reduces the cognitive ortime burden (or both) of navigation-related tasks performed by either PNs or patients: 2) is well-integrated in the work flow of patient navigators (PNs) and existing IT architecture: 3) securely transmits information across a variety of IT systems. The technical scope includes the development, deployment and evaluation of the Platform. The following are the proposed specific objectives: 1) establish a transdisciplinary project team; 2) perform a targeted literature review to inform the needs assessment of PNs and the design, development and evaluation of the platform; 3) conduct a needs assessment of PNs, cancer care team members and cancer patients in multiple cancer care delivery sites; 4) develop the Platform prototype to support the following patient navigation tasks: a) patient education, b) clinical communication, and c) coordination care planning; 5) conduct a usability study with a minimum of 25 users; and 6) disseminate and report on project activities to the National Cancer Institute.

Locus Health, in this Phase II effort, will further develop and demonstrate the utility and commercial viability of itsscalable, HIPAA-compliant Cancer Navigation Platform. The long-term goals of this Platform are to improve cancerpatient outcomes and the efficiency and quality of patient navigation. Building on Phase I results, the project team willfurther develop the Platform's patient engagement and navigation capabilities that promote targeted patient education,communication with patients and among the care team, care coordination including effective two-way integration withthe EMR, patient scheduling, and resource access and referrals, with particular emphasis placed on support for SocialDeterminants of Health. The project will test patient engagement, adherence, navigator efficiency, and key patientoutcomes by initiating pilot implementations at two sites, Inova Schar Cancer Institute and the University of VirginiaCancer Center. At the end of these pilots, parallel usability studies will be conducted at both sites to test key aspects ofthe patient, navigator, and integration capabilities to provide specific feedback for a further development cycle. Inaddition to commercializing the Platform at the two sites, the team expects to also secure 2-3 additional commercialcommitments at leading Cancer Centers/Health Systems. (Funded by Cancer Moonshot)

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