Brainstorming for a Quarter of a Million Americans
According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the second most common form of the disease in men, after skin cancer. The organization projects that in 2021, nearly 250,000 new cases will be diagnosed in America, and the disease will claim over 31,000 lives. While those statistics are staggering, many men diagnosed with prostate cancer survive.
CancerCare is the leading provider of free, professional support services to those diagnosed with cancer in the United States. From case management and counseling, to publications and financial assistance, the CancerCare network helps American cancer patients navigate their diagnosis.
Hack Cancer
Partnering with Guidemark Health, CancerCare organized a hackathon to identify and propose solutions for the unmet needs of prostate cancer patients in the United States. Critical to the meeting’s success was that any solutions were tangible, and actionable within one year.
The one-day session gathered over 40 attendees with various expertise – patient advocates, patients, medical journalists, researchers, and pharmaceuticals. Experts in their own right, but none of them experts on prostate cancer. The agenda needed to include time for educating participants about the disease, brainstorming new solutions, and presentations to the panel who would select the winning idea for Cancer Care to implement.
Operation Innovation
Guidemark turned to ImageThink to design and facilitate the innovation portion of the day. With five working teams, the groups had to quickly level set, then stay on pace to meet the challenge. ImageThink created a visual framework based on our own ImageThink Method™ to move the group through two phases of divergent and convergent thinking.
By the end of the day, groups uncovered several workable ideas, and identified a path for CancerCare to take through what would prove to be a very challenging 2020.
