NRG Oncology COVID-19 Updates

• Transferring care
  Care may be transferred for a specific visit or it may be fully transitioned to a new facility.
  • Local Healthcare Provider assumes your care.  For a patient already on a clinical trial, the Research Physician/Provider may make arrangements for a non-Research healthcare provider to provide care. This may be appropriate if someone cannot travel or due to changes at the medical facility is necessary as deemed by your research physician/care provider. Such arrangements are generally short-term or intermittent in nature.  Your current research physician remains responsible for your care on the research study.
  • Your physician or physician’s office may, in some cases, notify you that your care is being transferred elsewhere during this pandemic. Our clinical trials are open at many different facilities, and you may be able to continue with the research study. If the study is not currently open at your new facility, it may be possible that it could be – talk to your care provider. You can also see institutions where research studies are open here.
    
• Use of telemedicine
  The use of telemedicine – using technology to diagnosis and treat patients remotely- is not new, but may be newly implemented at some medical facilities in response to the current pandemic. You may be asked about this, and provided information as to how to do medical appointments remotely. You may also ask your care provider about it if you are interested.
  
  
• Closing some or all research studies
  You may learn that your research study is being suspended or closed due to insufficient ability to support it at this time. You may be provided information to transfer your care to a facility that can support your research study participation, or you may ask about that if you are notified of your facility closing your research study – see Transferring Care above, as well. 
  
  
• Delay or cancel of research related appointment
  Many offices are finding it necessary to cancel or delay research related appointments. We are working closely with all of our collaborating sites to understand and support these necessary changes, and to also figure out ways to allow us to continue to support the conduct of research that over a long-term will provide valuable information to how we care for cancer patients. 

(Updated 2/11/2021)

NRG Oncology remains committed to supporting your research efforts, whatever that may look like at your institution today. While the pandemic is commanding time, energy, and resources across the country and the world right now, the conduct of clinical research is a long-term commitment.  Together, we will weather this storm and do our best for patients, Member Sites, study teams, and staff - and get to those research outcomes as best we can.

Protocol-specific guidance will be provided through the CTSU as always, and disseminated through our weekly broadcast or more frequently as required.  This webpage links to the current guidance we are following from the NCI and CIRB. Come back often real-time updates will be posted here.