SBIR-STTR Award

VIPCare: Virtual Predictive Care workflow with integrated surveillance for optimal care protocol selection and management in at-risk prostate cancer patients
Award last edited on: 2/9/2024

Sponsored Program
SBIR
Awarding Agency
NIH : NCI
Total Award Amount
$406,500
Award Phase
1
Solicitation Topic Code
393
Principal Investigator
Sharon Hensley Alford

Company Information

Vizlitics Inc

32 Random Farms CIRcle
Chappaqua, NY 10514
   (914) 719-3094
   info@cancerinsights.com
   www.vizlitics.com
Location: Single
Congr. District: 17
County: Westchester

Phase I

Contract Number: 2023
Start Date: ----    Completed: 9/1/2023
Phase I year
2023
Phase I Amount
$406,500
Prostate cancer is the leading cancer diagnosis in men (not including skin cancer) and has high survival rates (98% at 5 years), resulting in an estimated 3.2M US men currently living with prostate cancer. However, data shows follow up among prostate cancer patients remains a significant challenge. A recent study at Dana- Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center (DF/BCC) demonstrated its novel Virtual Prostate Cancer Clinic (VPCC) increased access to care for new patients by 1110% and expanded revenue by 174% in four years. Leveraging knowledge gained by the VPCC's preliminary studies and to address this challenge in the market, Vizlitics will develop a Software-as-a-Service product on top of its existing Cancer Insights (CI) platform in collaboration with its research partners at DF/BCC to serve US cancer centers and community oncologists. Known as VIPCare, this new CDSS will automatically monitor, track, and optimally classify prostate cancer cases for triage by applying advanced algorithms to curated medical data. The cloud-based platform will ingest and curate cancer patient medical records, including unstructured notes and apply Markov Decision Process (MDP) modeling of patient longitudinal data onto published surveillance guidelines. VIPCare will automatically retrieve new medical record data to keep models current with the latest tests and encounters and then compute a classification probability for a patient being in each care protocol (active surveillance, active treatment, or post- treatment surveillance) and the probability of moving from one care protocol to another. In addition, the model will provide a recommendation for whether the patient should be followed by an electronic, virtual or in-person visit with an APP or physician. This approach will: 1) improve follow-up of surveillance patients by scaling an already validated approach, 2) leverage MDP to reduce the need for manual data entry, medical record review and hands-on patient management, and 3) improve allocation of clinic resources. Phase I Specific Aims are to: 1. Develop a MDP model by incorporating prostate cancer guidelines on longitudinal patient data. Using retrospective patient data, the team will apply the MDP model to compute probabilities for current and future care based on latest tests and medical record data. 2. An optimization algorithm will use the probability scores created in Aim 1, patient preferences, and provider constraints to compute the triage recommendation for each patient. The dashboard will give the overview status of each patient individually and the entire patient population globally. 3. In lab usability testing will be run as well as accuracy testing of the classification and optimization algorithms. At the end of Phase I, the company will have demonstrated feasibility of VIPCare, achieving acceptable user testing and computation model accuracy ≥80%. Phase II will be a real-time test pilot of VIPCare at a prostate cancer clinic with additional technical enhancements in preparation for commercialization. Significant market opportunities exist for a tool like VIPCare that can offer demonstrated cost savings, increased practice efficiency and improved patient outcomes.

Public Health Relevance Statement:
Narrative Prostate cancer is the leading cancer diagnosis in men (not including skin cancer) and has high survival rates (98% at 5 years), resulting in an estimated 3.2M US men currently living with prostate cancer. However, data shows follow up among prostate cancer patients remains a significant challenge. This project will create a cloud- based clinical decision support system to automatically monitor, track, and optimally classify prostate cancer cases for triage by applying advanced algorithms to curated medical data.

Project Terms:
Survival Rate; Testing; Time; Triage; Urology; Woman; Cost Savings; Businesses; Case Management; Resource Allocation; Caring; Guidelines; improved; Acute; Phase; Biochemical; Medical; Ensure; Training; ingest; Ingestion; insight; Visual; Oncologist; Oncology Cancer; Oncology; Collaborations; tool; Malignant neoplasm of prostate; Malignant Tumor of the Prostate; Malignant prostatic tumor; Prostate CA; Prostate Cancer; Prostate malignancy; Prostatic Cancer; Patient Preferences; Knowledge; Clinic; Protocols documentation; Protocol; Test Result; Clinical Decision Support Systems; Operative Surgical Procedures; Operative Procedures; Surgical; Surgical Interventions; Surgical Procedure; surgery; Visit; Consult; consults; Performance; cohort; Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act; HIPAA; Kennedy Kassebaum Act; PL 104-191; PL104-191; Public Law 104-191; United States Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act; novel; Reporting; Modeling; Sampling; performance tests; cancer care; cancer diagnosis; Provider; Address; Health system; Symptoms; Data; Retrieval; Cancer Center; Cancer Patient; Patient-Focused Outcomes; Patient outcome; Patient-Centered Outcomes; patient oriented outcomes; Monitor; Preparation; preparations; Process; follow-up; Active Follow-up; active followup; follow up; followed up; followup; active method; active technique; active treatment; virtual; designing; design; Population; cancer type; usability; commercialization; PSA test; prostate specific antigen screening; prostate specific antigen test; PSA screening; patient population; clinical decision-making; screenings; screening; cloud based; individual patient; software as a service; dashboard; Retrospective cohort; care providers; prostate cancer risk; clinical decision support; Computerized Models; computational modeling; computational models; computer based models; computerized modeling; Computer Models; Visualization; patient health record; patient medical record; patient health information; pilot test; After Care; After-Treatment; post treatment; Aftercare; Algorithms; Malignant Neoplasms; Cancers; Malignant Tumor; malignancy; neoplasm/cancer; Skin Cancer; Malignant Skin Neoplasm; malignant skin tumor; Classification; Systematics; Communities; Electronics; electronic; electronic device; Explosion; Future; Health Services Accessibility; Access to Care; access to health services; access to services; access to treatment; accessibility to health services; availability of services; care access; health service access; health services availability; service availability; treatment access; Manuals; Marketing; Medical Records; men; Persons; New York; Nurse Practitioners; Patient Education; Patient Instruction; Patient Training; Patients; Physicians; Probability; Production; Publishing; Recommendation; Recurrence; Recurrent; Research; Resources; Research Resources; Running

Phase II

Contract Number: 1R43CA281547-01A1
Start Date: 8/31/2024    Completed: 00/00/00
Phase II year
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Phase II Amount
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