Page 2 - Swifty Impact Report Sept 2023

THE IMPACT OF GIFT FROM A CHILD

Last year’s Impact Report unveiled our 2022-2025 Strategic Plan for Gift from a Child (GFAC). We are excited to
reacquaint you with our four strategic objectives and the progress made! In the first years of the GFAC program
our go to line was, “we are building the bridge as we walk on it”. We are proud to report the divide between
post-mortem (PM) collection and the pediatric cancer community has been bridged... now it’s all about
strengthening, reinforcing, and building more lanes on the bridge.
OBJECTIVE #1:

Increase PM tissue donations by 15% annually using the GFAC Tissue Navigator program.

Measuring New York Seven Regional

Presbyterian
the Gift Seattle Children’s Hospital Hospital/Weill Centers of Excellence!
Cornell
Medical Center
University of Michigan
We so wish we
Ann and Robert H. Children’s
Hospital of
were measuring Stanford University Lurie Children’s Philadelphia
Medical Center
Hospital of Chicago
the percentage University of Kentucky Children’s
National
Hospital
increase of children Arnold Palmer
surviving their Hospital
for Children
brain cancer. Sadly,
that metric does not move much
from year to year. It will someday and collecting tissue will play
an important role. That is why GFAC exists and why measuring the
annual increase in PM tissue collected for research is important.
This news is hot off the presses! Seattle
DONATION SUMMARY 288 Children’s Hospital has just joined the
TOTAL DONATIONS GFAC network as a Regional Center of
REFERRALS Excellence (RCE). Drs. Sarah Leary
(PATIENTS NOT TREATED AT AN RCE HOSPITAL)
158 and Nick Vitanza will be the Principal
Investigators and Jeff Stevens the
81
55 59 62 55 49
26 31 19 30 34 33 Tissue Navigator… what a team!
GFAC is strengthened by their
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 AS PROJECTED PROJECTED Northwest location and reputation.
COVID OF 8/31 2023 TOTAL

The GFAC Program Evolves

More than half of the donations over the last two years have come from institutions outside the RCE’s. Over 70
different institutions have facilitated donations in partnership with our Tissue Navigators (TNs).
This increased awareness has made institutions want to become part of the GFAC network, providing a
golden opportunity to strengthen our network. To that end, we are rolling out a new model that offers medical
institutions three ways to become a GFAC affiliate and support the work of PM donation.

• GFAC Regional Center of Excellence – these centers proud to welcome Dr. Carl Koschmann’s lab at the
will continue to be home to our Tissue Navigators and University of Michigan as our first GFAC Center!
facilitate donations across the country. • GFAC Referral Collaborator – These new partners
• GFAC Center – These institutions are home to some of represent institutions who regularly refer patients to
the best researchers in the country. Our regional TNs will our TNs. We welcome Kentucky Children’s Hospital as
facilitate donations directly to GFAC Centers according to our first Referral Collaborator!
the Center's specific research requirements. We are
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