Skin Cancer Champions Hosts Event to Brainstorm for Growth, Sustainability

The Skin Care Champions nonprofit hosted an innovation tournament at Brigham and Women’s Hospital on February 3, bringing together clinicians, patients, caregivers, industry, and more to brainstorm ideas for the organization to achieve growth and sustainability in the future.

Emily S. Ruiz, MD, MPH, FAAD, one of Skin Cancer Champions’ two founding members, hosted and moderated the event, during which attendees wrote down their own ideas, discussed them in small groups, shared with the larger group, and ultimately voted on the ideas and discussed implementation. Two members of the Practical Dermatology team participated, alongside representatives from Castle Biosciences, Regeneron, Sun Pharma, and more.

“The purpose of this innovation tournament for Skin Cancer Champions was to generate ideas to help grow the community and also make it more sustainable,” Dr. Ruiz told Practical Dermatology. “The innovation tournament generated quite a few ideas. We selected about eight ideas that we are hoping to implement within the next year. We selected some that should be easy and really inexpensive to implement, and then we selected two ideas that will be more costly and time-consuming but that hopefully will have a significant long-term impact.”

Skin Cancer Champions was formed in 2024 as a private online community to provide a centralized space where patients, caregivers, and clinicians can connect and receive up-to-date information throughout all stages of non-melanoma skin cancers.

The organization earned a Silver Award at the Digital Health Awards Fall 2024 in November.

“We submitted a video showcasing what our community was about, what our purpose is, and what the value is for patients,” executive director Emily Karn said. “It’s really exciting to put us on the map in terms of skin cancer education.”

To learn more about Skin Cancer Champions, go to scout.connectedcommunity.org.