About three years ago, Mayo Clinic started a pilot program called Cancer CARE Beyond Walls to let some patients get chemotherapy infusions at home. Last week, investigators from Mayo Clinic published an analysis of that program, showing that it had certain benefits for patients. In the program, a "command center" of physicians and advanced practice clinicians (like NPs or PAs) at Mayo Clinic would coordinate remote care and monitor patients. A staff of mobile clinicians would deliver the care remotely.
Programs like this might be important as cancer incidence rises, and there are more cancer survivors who may need ongoing care and monitoring, according to the authors. One thing that's cool to me about programs like this is the idea that you could be able to bring cancer therapy to more places that don't have easy access to infusion clinics, so it's interesting to see that the authors reported a successful home infusion program.
That being said, the program only had an operating distance of 35 miles from the medical center, but the authors note that they believe scaling out to rural areas is possible. Certainly, physical infrastructure for cancer care isn't the only limitation to rural care, though, as those areas might lack an adequate cancer workforce.
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