Wilmot Cancer Institute serves a 27-county region in upstate New York. Wilmot’s Office of Community Outreach, Engagement, and Disparities is especially focused on ensuring that marginalized groups are wholly represented at Wilmot, from staff to research efforts to cancer education. Recognizing that the Greater Rochester area has the highest deaf and hard-of-hearing population per capita nationwide, Wilmot is committed to ensuring that its cancer treatment, research, and outcomes include deaf people as well.
To help inform Wilmot’s overarching strategy on how the institution will engage deaf individuals and their families, Wilmot has partnered with Innivee Strategies, Inc. Innivee Strategies will hold focus groups with community members and gather data through a bilingual American Sign Language/English survey, which will help identify what Wilmot is doing well and where the organization can improve. Innivee Strategies will also support the Wilmot team in assessing this data and in determining what the top priorities should be in order to make Wilmot into the nation’s top cancer center for all community members, including deaf and hard-of-hearing community members.
Research consistently indicates that deaf and hard-of-hearing people experience disparities across their lifespan, including but not limited to education, employment, and healthcare. Innivee Strategies commends Wilmot for addressing these disparities head-on. We are inspired by Wilmot’s vision to conquer all cancers and its goal to provide the highest quality treatment and care for all people in the western and central New York region and beyond.
We look forward to our collaboration with Wilmot Cancer Institute and its efforts to engage the deaf and hard-of-hearing. To learn more, please watch Wilmot and Innivee Strategies’ social media channels for more updates and announcements about this project and our upcoming focus groups and survey.
About the Wilmot Cancer Institute
UR Medicine’s Wilmot Cancer Institute provides world-class cancer treatment and care and conducts pivotal research. The goal is to prevent and conquer cancer through innovation in science, patient care, education, and community outreach. Based in Rochester, N.Y., as part of the University of Rochester Medical Center system, Wilmot serves approximately 3 million people in a 27-county region in western and central New York. Established in 1974, it has a long history of outstanding clinical care and research breakthroughs, including pivotal contributions to the pioneering HPV cancer vaccine and determining that nausea is a major barrier to completing treatment and establishing the role of anti-nausea drugs. Wilmot features an 87-bed flagship cancer center, 13 outpatient locations, and one of the state’s largest blood and marrow transplant programs. Wilmot is a component of Strong Memorial Hospital and is home to the region’s first cancer survivorship clinic, and one of the nation’s first geriatric oncology clinics.
About Innivee Strategies, Inc.
Innivee Strategies, Inc. is an organizational and leadership development company. We believe that communities are only as strong as the organizations that serve them. We consult with organizations and leaders to create and achieve goals, manage change, obtain and utilize data, cultivate community buy-in, and nurture and retain inspiring and transformative leaders.
