Congratulations to Susan Eggly, Ph.D., professor and a member of the Population Studies and Disparities Research Program at Karmanos Cancer Institute and Wayne State University School of Medicine and her research team for being recognized with gold and silver 2020 Telly Awards. These accolades were given for the Partnering Around Cancer Clinical Trials (PACCT) informational video. The gold was won in the category of Non-Broadcast: Employee Communications and the silver for Non-Broadcast: General Recruitment.
The Telly Awards honor excellence in local, regional and cable television commercials as well as non-broadcast video and television programming. Annually, the awards showcase the best work created across video for all screens, selected from over 12,000 entries from all 50 states and five continents. Telly Award winners represent work from some of the most respected advertising agencies, television stations, production companies and publishers from around the world.
The winning video was created as part of a training module designed to improve the way health care providers communicate with patients and their family members about clinical trials. It is part of the larger PACCT research initiative, a National Cancer Institute-funded award, which aims to increase clinical trial rates in a diverse patient population. The overall goal of the study is to test two communication interventions, one for patients and another for physicians, as a way to increase rates at which African-American and White men with prostate cancer make informed decisions to participate in a clinical trial. Designed to encourage physicians to offer trials to all eligible patients using high-quality, patient-centered communication, an earlier version of the PACCT provider training module was delivered throughout the 16 Karmanos network locations in Michigan, with positive results. The latest training modules will soon be nationally available.
The use of video is central to PACCT research. With permission from patients, family members and providers, clinical interactions are recorded and reviewed as a way to better understand and improve patient-physician communication. In addition, videos from these actual interactions are re-enacted and used to provide evidence-based instruction to both providers and patients.
Filming clinical interactions requires a great deal of time and organization from the research team. Dr. Eggly, Principal Investigator for PACCT explained, “We are honored and privileged to have the cooperation and participation of so many clinicians, patients, and family members. Their participation helps us to analyze and improve communication, which will improve cancer care.”
PACCT is funded by a grant from the National Cancer Institute. Johns Hopkins School of Medicine/Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer also serves as a research site and oversaw the production of the video, with the script and planning from Wayne State University School of Medicine and Karmanos Cancer Institute.
The team from Wayne State University School of Medicine and Karmanos Cancer Institute includes Susan Eggly, Ph.D., Lauren M. Hamel, Ph.D., Elisabeth Heath, M.D., Mark A. Manning, Ph.D., Terrance L. Albrecht, Ph.D., Ellen Barton, Ph.D., Mark Wojda, Tanina Foster, Ph.D., Seongho Kim, Ph.D., Nicole Senft, Ph.D. and Louis A. Penner, Ph.D., as well as several researchers from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine/Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer.