Research can take 17 yrs to go from “bench to bedside” of the patient [1].
How do we fix this??
This always seemed high to me… very high.
But after building for 12+ years and STILL working on bridging a single gap between academia and actual care delivery, I believe it.
Case in point:
This past week, our team published a methods paper for a randomized clinical trial with Dr. Berardine Pinto at the University of South Carolina and her colleagues at the University of Colorado and Brown University.
“Adapting an Efficacious Peer-Delivered Physical Activity Program for Survivors of Breast Cancer for Web Platform Delivery: Protocol for a 2-Phase Study.” [2]
This is AFTER the 4 studies below were funded, done, and published:
- 2005: 1st randomized clinical trial completed and published [3]. Work started in 1998.
- 2008: Pilot study successfully completed and published. [4]
- 2015: A second randomized clinical trial was completed and published [5]
- 2022: A third randomized clinical trial was completed and published [6]
Then Dr. Pinto and I met. We quickly realized that our tech platform could help reduce costs, standardize quality and help scale this efficacious intervention. NIH funded this work, and here we are.
However, we can’t just rely on outliers like Dr. Pinto.
How do we fix this more broadly? We need to move faster.
One answer: Change the incentives for academic tenure.
Currently, what counts are things like:
- The $ of grants won
- The # of papers published
- The # of academic citations received
What if we instead/also prioritized:
- The # of patents awarded
- The # startups created-advised
- The # patients’ lives improved?
Could this get us more innovation…into the real world…faster?
What else do we need to fix?
References
[1] Balas, E. A., & Boren, S. A. Managing Clinical Knowledge for Health Care Improvement. Yearbook of Medical Informatics, 2000.
[2] Pinto BM, Patel A, Ostendorf DM, Huebschmann AG, Dunsiger SI, Kindred MM. Adapting an Efficacious Peer-Delivered Physical Activity Program for Survivors of Breast Cancer for Web Platform Delivery: Protocol for a 2-Phase Study. 2024.
[3] Pinto BM, Frierson GM, Rabin C, Trunzo JJ, Marcus BH. Home-based physical activity intervention for breast cancer patients. Journal of Clinical Oncology: 2005.
[4] Pinto BM, Rabin C, Abdow S, Papandonatos GD. A pilot study on disseminating physical activity promotion among cancer survivors: a brief report. Psychooncology. 2008.
[5] Pinto BM, Stein K, Dunsiger S. Peers promoting physical activity among breast cancer survivors: a randomized controlled trial. Health Psychol. 2015.
[6] Pinto BM, Dunsiger SI, Kindred MM, Mitchell S. Physical activity adoption and maintenance among breast cancer survivors: a randomized trial of peer mentoring. Ann Behav Med. 2022.