SBIR PHASE I TOPIC 406 - CANCER NAVIGATION PLATFORM

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.