Grant Number:	3P50CA271358-04S2 Interpret this number
Primary Investigator:	Sherman, Scott
Organization:	New York University School Of Medicine
Project Title:	Telehealth Research and Innovation for Veterans with Cancer (THRIVE)
Fiscal Year:	2025

The rapid expansion of telehealth has demonstrated its potential to improve access to care but has also highlighted ethical challenges that arise when care is delivered virtually, including concerns about privacy and confidentiality. These challenges are especially pressing in cancer care, where sensitive and complex health information is shared, and trust is paramount for effective patient-clinician relationships. We propose an administrative supplement to the Telehealth Research and Innovation for Veterans with Cancer (THRIVE) Center. The goals of this supplement are to: 1. Identify and mitigate privacy and confidentiality concerns in telehealth for cancer care, with a particular focus on building trust in patient-clinician relationships to ensure high-quality care for all veterans. 2. Develop an empirical evidence base that can serve as a foundation for new bioethics policy and governance regarding privacy, confidentiality, and trust in telehealth. This proposed supplement builds upon the parent award by focusing on the privacy and confidentiality concerns related to telehealth for cancer care that will be critical to ensuring that telehealth services at the VA are patient-centered and trustworthy. Our specific aims include: 1. Identify privacy and confidentiality concerns unique to telehealth for cancer care, utilizing semi-structured, in-depth interviews with veterans and clinicians. 2. Develop recommendations to enhance privacy/confidentiality in telehealth while fostering trust between patients and clinicians. The long-term goal of our research is to provide a scalable framework for addressing privacy and trust issues in telehealth across cancer care settings and beyond, strengthening the VA’s commitment to high quality care for all veterans. The findings will also contribute to broader efforts to integrate patient centeredness into the rapidly evolving landscape of virtual oncology care, establishing a model for addressing similar challenges across other healthcare domains. This supplement proposal addresses a key NIH and NCI priority related to the ethics of new and emerging digital health technologies like telehealth services. This supplement will expand bioethics research on this topic and support the development of an evidence base that may inform future policy directions.





None. See parent grant details.