The Cancer Service Line (CSL) and the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation (PC3I) at the Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) are delighted to announce the selected 2023 Innovation Accelerator project.

The chosen project, submitted by Heather Sheaffer, DSW, LCSW, FACHE, seeks to enhance the ability of the ACC’s Patient and Family Services social workers to work at the top of their clinical licenses, thereby expanding care for cancer patients and families.

Over the next six months, the team will receive innovation and operational support and mentorship from the CSL and PC3I, and collaborate with a broad group of stakeholders across Penn Medicine. The aim is to maximize social work time spent on patient care requiring clinical skill by developing a solution to make non-clinical resources widely available and accessible to patients by other means. At the conclusion of the pilot, the project team will present its impact and findings, and identify opportunities for scale.

Each year, the CSL-PC3I Innovation Accelerator Program invites applications from across Penn Medicine for initiatives that aim to create and test innovative solutions to address challenges in cancer care at Penn Medicine.