Tag Archive for: clinical trial communication

What Guidance Can Help Nurses With Clinical Trial Communication?

/in , /by

What Guidance Can Help Nurses With Clinical Trial Communication? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

How can healthcare providers aid nurses with clinical trial communication guidance? Expert Dr. Beth Faiman from Taussig Cancer Institute shares her unique perspective and advice as a former nurse practitioner and clinical trials nurse.

Download Resource Guide|Descargar guía de recursos

See More from EPEP Myeloma

Related Resources:

Evolving Myeloma Clinical Trial Discussions Amid a Dynamic Treatment Landscape

 HCP Strategies for Navigating the Pre-trial Eligibility and Informed Consent Process

 HCP Roundtable: Best Practices for Talking About Clinical Trials With Myeloma Patients

Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Dr. Faiman, as we continue on this topic, and as someone who has been a consistent figure in the continuum of care, how do you guide other nursing professionals when it comes to clinical trial communication? Do you have specific tips or tricks or things that you can share with the audience?

Dr. Beth Faiman:

Yeah, absolutely. So I think I have a unique perspective having been a clinical trials nurse, nurse practitioner, and now I conduct, independently, clinical trials. And so I, throughout that whole journey, so I share my experiences and some of the key tips that I like to share with other nurses and healthcare providers is just coming to the patient level. And as Ruthie had said a moment ago, at each encounter you have that opportunity to educate that patient about their labs, what’s their remission status, their disease status, what drugs are they on, what worked, what didn’t work? And the ones that are in remission for a while, one, two, three, five years, we have discussions about next therapy.

So I say to them, “Okay, now, we have a great clinical trial. I think everything’s going very well with your disease remission status, but let’s make sure that you know what might be the next best thing for you.”

And I start planting that seed, giving them information about next therapy so that it’s not that, “Oh my gosh, I thought I was never going to relapse and now I need another treatment.” It’s okay, we have a game plan, we’re here in this together, let’s get some information.

So disseminating this at this critical information to nurses at national conferences about the different drugs that are available, the toxicities, and how to offer them to our patients, I think is really important. But really just cheering in that partnership, as we just talked about, is really key to success, I think.

Share Your Feedback:

Evolving Myeloma Clinical Trial Discussions Amid a Dynamic Treatment Landscape

/in , /by

Evolving Myeloma Clinical Trial Discussions Amid a Dynamic Treatment Landscape from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

How can discussion about myeloma clinical trials continue to expand? Experts Dr. Beth Faiman from Taussig Cancer Institute and RuthAnn Gordon from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center discuss how clinical trial communication has changed and some specific points of communication that are helpful.

Download Resource Guide|Descargar guía de recursos

See More from EPEP Myeloma

Related Resources:

What Guidance Can Help Nurses With Clinical Trial Communication

 HCP Strategies for Navigating the Pre-trial Eligibility and Informed Consent Process

 HCP Roundtable: Best Practices for Talking About Clinical Trials With Myeloma Patients

Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Dr. Faiman, as the myeloma treatment landscape continues to expand thanks to clinical trials, how are clinical trial conversations evolving, and what do you feel should be top of mind?

Dr. Beth Faiman:

That’s an excellent question. Over 20 different drugs are available in various combinations. And so we talked about sequencing very briefly about having patients that have access to clinical trials, making sure they’re not exposed to this class, or maybe they needed to be exposed to this class of drug before they can get drug B, for example. And so sharing mutual information through shared decision-making, again, the patients sharing information and goals of care, the provider and healthcare team mutually sharing information, bring in your social worker or pharmacist, etcetera, and then you can mutually agree on a treatment for the patient. And so that is something we did not have 20 years ago. There were very few effective agents.

I like to remind patients when we provide clinical trial consent forms, that the language is written by lawyers, but it’s intended to protect you. I overemphasize that this is voluntary, and you can withdraw your consent at any time. But I try to go back and highlight why there’s stringent, plus or minus one day, maybe you can’t take off three days to go on a holiday weekend, because we really need to dose this drug on that day and obtain this blood information. So again, having the patients understand what’s involved in the clinical trials and then being able to provide information.

I like to also offer handouts. So the International Myeloma Foundation has clinical trials and diversity handouts. And then another one that I really like is by the FDA that describes the importance of clinical trials. I give that to everybody. So at diagnosis, if you’re on a standard care treatment, you’re not receiving a clinical trial. Everybody that comes into my office that I see for myeloma amyloidosis and related disorders, I would say, “You are a candidate for clinical trial now, but if I or somebody else does not involve you or ask you to participate, then ask us. Just ask us about clinical trials.” I even have a pen that says “Ask me about clinical trials” so that everybody can see it.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

I love the idea of a pen. Wonderful. Well, let’s move on to how to educate and mentor nursing professionals. Both of you are nursing professionals, and you’ve clearly highlighted in this program so far the importance of the role of nurses in this clinical trial process. So, Ms. Gordon, I’m going to go to you. We know that one significant challenge for some providers is actually initiating conversations about clinical trials and also determining the appropriate timing. Can you speak to whether care variation may pose challenges in community hospital settings, perhaps compared to academic hospitals?

RuthAnn Gordon:

Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the most important things about when to talk to the patient is every time, anytime, right? I think that we should be asking them if they’re interested in clinical trials. If they haven’t been engaged in that, we should be talking to them about, “You know, there’s maybe a chance at some time in our partnership together that we will be talking about clinical trials.” And introducing that up front I think is really important so that we don’t leave clinical trials sort of as a last thought and the patient have that feeling. And I think that for the community setting, that’s one of the things that may be a challenge, is because it is hard to put a patient on a clinical trial and run it from a community setting.

So it’s, how do we give them the support and resources so that it’s not so hard and that they do offer it and talk to their patients as much as possible about it? And I feel like that’s what we need to do more with these partnerships with academic settings, is that we have to give them support so that it’s not so hard, and that that clinical trials first of mind to them when they’re planning care for their patients.

Share Your Feedback:

HCP Strategies for Navigating the Pre-trial Eligibility and Informed Consent Process

/in , /by

HCP Strategies for Navigating the Pre-trial Eligibility and Informed Consent Process from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

How can myeloma patient communication about clinical trials be improved? Clinical trial nursing director RuthAnn Gordon from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center discusses clinical trial eligibility determinations and the consent process for patients.

Download Resource Guide|Descargar guía de recursos

See More from EPEP Myeloma

Related Resources:

What Guidance Can Help Nurses With Clinical Trial Communication

 Evolving Myeloma Clinical Trial Discussions Amid a Dynamic Treatment Landscape

 HCP Roundtable: Best Practices for Talking About Clinical Trials With Myeloma Patients

Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Ms. Gordon, you’ve been doing this for a long time. In your experience, what are tried and true strategies that healthcare providers can implement to effectively communicate with their patients about clinical trials when speaking to pretrial eligibility determination and the consent process specifically?

RuthAnn Gordon:

Yeah. Thanks for the question. I think that an important thing whenever we’re talking to our patients is to really understand where they are with understanding and how they learn. So it’s important for us to know what their health literacy is so that we’re making sure that we’re talking in a language that they can understand and using words that are appropriate. And so that’s key. Clinical trials have a lot of comprehensive and complex assessments that are needed for pretrial eligibility, right?

So I think it’s really important to make sure that we are being transparent as to what they can expect. We don’t want them to have surprises later on and then not feel like they want to continue with that process. So I do recommend to my providers and my research nurses, sometimes get out the hard stuff up front. Know if they’re going to be there for 12-hour PKs. Let them know. It shouldn’t be a surprise. And I think that that really helps patients. First, they get involved in the process, they know what to expect, and you can really have more confidence in their adherence.

The other thing is to allow time for the conversations, right? We need to allow time for our patients to ask questions. And the consent process can be lengthy. There’s a lot on the document. Sometimes it’s quite long. So you want to make sure that they’re in a state of mind to have the conversation, that you allow time for questions, and that you make it an exchange between the two of you. It’s a dialogue. It should be.

And you should come with understanding where they’re at; understanding a little bit about what’s going on behind the scenes, right?What’s happening at home is important as you’re talking about pretrial eligibility, as you’re talking about what they can expect on trial, just to get a full picture of them. So I think that those to me are very helpful. Providing take-home information to the patient so they have something to reflect on later is also really important, because they’re not going to grasp everything in that one session. And consenting is like an ongoing process, right? You have one conversation, you probably have 10 more.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

That is wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I really appreciate that both of you have highlighted the importance of health literacy, and meeting our patients and families where they are and making sure that they understand, and this idea that it’s a continuum: That there may be multiple conversations that will be necessary.

Share Your Feedback: