The Clinical Trial Referral Ambassadors program to promote clinical trial referrals within rural community hospitals:...

Community hospitals often lack research infrastructure, leading to fewer research opportunities for patients and low trial accrual rates. In practice, community hospitals can develop partnerships with academic facilities to refer patients for research opportunities but there is a dearth of research related to facilitating such referrals. We developed and implemented the Clinical Trial Referral Ambassadors (CTRA) training program to support trial referral efforts by nurses and clinic staff at community hospitals. This report describes CTRA and results from a formative evaluation.

CTRA was designed to create clinical research referral "Ambassadors" among nurses and research staff at community hospitals who can speak confidently to physicians and patients about the referral process and assist in facilitating referral activities. CTRA is grounded in best practices for community oncology training programs and includes didactic and interactive sessions, communication skills building, and self-assessment/discussions. The program evaluation included a post-training survey to assess acceptability and preliminary outcomes.

Of the 25 individuals enrolled in CTRA, 13 (52%) attended all training sessions and 9 (36%) engaged in at least one session. Training acceptability ratings (evaluation survey n = 16) were favorable and participants reported high levels of confidence in their ability to refer patients, understanding of trials, and motivation to increase referrals after CTRA.

Preliminary evidence suggests the CTRA is acceptable and increased participants' knowledge, motivation, and skills for referring patients to clinical research. Future directions include identifying strategies to bolster CTRA participation and testing the impact of CTRA on trial referral rates.