Northwestern’s Program for Scalable TELeheaLth Cancer CARe (STELLAR) is part of a new initiative that is funding four National Cancer Institute (NCI) Telehealth Cancer Research Centers of Excellence. Northwestern will receive $5.5 million in funding over five years. This initiative is supported by Cancer Moonshot, a White House to accelerate the rate of progress against cancer.

The STELLAR program aims to reduce the cost of treatment by training bachelor’s-level “health promotionists,” supervised by clinical health psychologists, to remotely coach patients by telephone, and by using technology to track participants’ health and behaviors.

“Over the years, we have developed separate treatments for [smoking, obesity, and lack of physical activity]” said project leader Bonnie Spring, PhD, professor of Behavioral Medicine in the Department of Preventive Medicine. “Now we are putting them together. That’s an efficiency. Ordinarily it would be burdensome and expensive to deliver a treatment for even one of these risk behaviors."

Telehealth integrated programs like these are predicted to save $124.3 million in the cost of cancer treatment at Northwestern Medicine alone.

Northwestern Now has the story: Article by Marla Paul