George Washington University Cancer Institute to Launch Patient Engagement Center

The George Washington University Cancer Institute received $150,000 from a closing nonprofit to support and start up a patient engagement center.

The nonprofit, the Center for Advancing Health (CAH), is closing due to the death of its founder, Jessie Gruman, Ph.D. The CAH decided that the GW Cancer Institute would be the best facility to carry on its mission to increase people's engagement in their healthcare by promoting greater understanding of the role of behavior on health. The Cancer Institute was one of multiple proposals to CAH to receive the funding and establish the Center for Patient Engagement. Along with the money, the Cancer Institute will receive intellectual assets from the CAH. 

"We are excited to launch the Center for Patient Engagement at the GW Cancer Institute. This would not be possible without initial funding from the Jessie Gruman Memorial Fund of the Center for Advancing Health," Mandi Pratt-Chapman, director of the GW Cancer Institute, said in a statement. "This gift will expand our focus on patient-centered care to create informed, engaged patients, and advocate for supportive health care systems."

The GW Cancer Institute will carry on the CAH's many patient engagement efforts, including the development of a web application that educates patients who have just been diagnosed with a serious disease. The Center will also do advocacy work and continue patient-centered research. 

Gruman began the CAH by drawing own experience of treatment for five cancer diagnoses as well as interviews with several patients and caregivers.