Date
12-19-2024
Department
School of Health Sciences
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy in Health Sciences (PhD)
Chair
Rana Walley
Keywords
rural access, oncology, community, community oncology, diagnostic clinics, socioeconomic barriers, time to treatment, clinical trial participation
Disciplines
Medicine and Health Sciences
Recommended Citation
Bartholomew, Joy Lynn, "Accessing Cancer Care Through a Community Diagnostic Clinic" (2024). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 6419.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/6419
Abstract
Access to diagnostic centers, innovative cancer research and best clinical practices is limited outside metropolitan areas and academic institutions. Cancer patients in rural communities are a marginalized population faced with unique barriers to high quality care from early detection through screening, streamlined diagnostics, and participation in clinical trials. One-stop clinics (OSC) in the community setting may lessen the diagnostic interval (DI), reduce the economic burden of unnecessary imagining or procedures, minimize sociodemographic discrepancies, and positively affect time to treatment and clinical trial participation. The first step is to better understand the community cancer population and their diagnostic journey. Next, an attempt to identify if a relationship to therapy exists from these descriptive results, through a retrospective chart review of an OSC in the rural setting. A matched control pair wise comparison of the OSC patient population, to those diagnosed through the standard referral-based process, of their diagnostic route, disease burden, time to treatment and the frequency of cancer clinical trial participation will be described. Correlations of this data will determine if there is a relationship between these variables. These efforts will lay the groundwork for future research of rural community cancer patients as an underrepresented population and drive efforts to identify studies of intervention to reduce barriers and improve diagnostic access and clinical trial participation.
