Purpose: To inform stakeholders of a newly formed, VAbased, research oriented collaborative group, the Veterans Radiation Oncology Consortium (VET-ROC).
Background: To strengthen, promote and enhance VA oncology and radiation oncology centered research, VET-ROC was conceived in October 2018 at the San Antonio VA Radiation Oncology Field Based Meeting and formed with the consent of 18 members sites.
Results: An email sent to all 85 known VA radiation oncologists in October 2018 drew 18 positive responses to join a clinical research consortium within VA. Members responded to 2 questionnaires about the state of their program in October 2018 and April 2019. Per their responses, VET-ROC sites consist of approximately 47 FTE Radiation Oncologists and > 26 FTE Physicists. The sites reported a total of 7.1 FTEE Clinical Research Coordinators (CRC’s) in October 2018 and 10.2 FTE CRC’s in April 2019 with most sites sharing CRC’s with other specialties. Five sites reported a lack of any research coordinator in October 2018, and in April 2019, 3 of those 5 sites had received approval from their resource management committees to hire CRCs.
The group had a face to face meeting in FEB 2019 and has held conference calls every 4-6 weeks since then to review opportunities for research, shared best practices, partake in educational webinars, identify barriers to research development, opportunities for research proposals with at least 2 groups of members submitting Merit Review awards to CSR&D that may have been possible as a result of VET-ROC. Feedback on the progress the group has made has been largely positive. Individual responses noted that the group had created opportunities that would not have been possible otherwise. There were suggestions to formalize the structure of the group.
Conclusion: Since its formation, VET-ROC has been a very positive experience for its members who consist of a select group of Radiation Oncologists with shared common interests in clinical research. The group will likely continue to move grow and move forward if it can translate its momentum into research support obtained from a diverse source of funding mechanisms.
