This grant will enable the Children’s Blood & Cancer Center (CBCC) Clinical Research Department to oversee patient clinical trial participation in a more organized and efficient manner. Grant funds will be used to develop a new database system and enable the hospital to hire a database coordinator who will streamline the data collection process, store data more efficiently and provide statistics and reports to Seton and other organizations across the nation.
“The number of children diagnosed with cancer at the CBCC has more than tripled since 1998,” says
Dr. Amy Fowler, pediatric hermatology and oncology specialist with Dell Children’s. “We continuously face the financial challenge of doing more with less, so this grant is helping saves lives now and in future generations.”
This series of grants, combined with the more than $21.2 million awarded in July to fund cutting-edge research, brings the St. Baldrick’s Foundation’s funding total to $23 million awarded in 2015. Grants were awarded based on the need of the institution and its patients, anticipated results of the grant and local participation in St. Baldrick’s fundraising events and activities.
“The St. Baldrick’s Foundation is excited to fund this latest round of grants, which will give much needed support to multiple pediatric cancer treatment teams across the U.S.,” said Kathleen Ruddy, chief executive officer of St. Baldrick’s. “These grants will improve the capacity of the institutions to do more research, enroll more children in cutting-edge clinical trials and complete studies that are in progress. These grants would not be possible without our dedicated volunteers and generous donors who believe that kids deserve better than the toxic medicines that are currently available which all too often harm developing bodies and create lifelong, life-threatening health problems.”
About St. Baldrick’s Foundation
The St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a volunteer-powered charity committed to funding the most promising research to find cures for childhood cancers and give survivors long and healthy lives. Since 2005, St. Baldrick’s has awarded more than $178 million to support lifesaving research, making the Foundation the largest private funder of childhood cancer research grants. For more information about the St. Baldrick’s Foundation please call 1.888.899.BALD or visit
www.StBaldricks.org.
About Seton Healthcare Family
Seton Healthcare Family, a member of Ascension, is a faith-based non-profit health care system founded in 1902 by the Daughters of Charity. Called to be a sign of God’s unconditional love for all, Seton strives to expand access to high-quality, low-cost, person-centered care and services.
Seton operates more than 100 clinical locations, including four teaching hospitals that will be training sites for Dell Medical School at The University of Texas starting in 2016. One of those training sites is a world-class pediatric medical center with its own Level I trauma center. Seton conducts research in the prevention and treatment of stroke, traumatic injury, epilepsy and cardiovascular disease.
Seton collaborates with employers, commercial insurance companies, community physicians, nonprofit agencies and government entities to create clinically integrated systems of care with providers throughout its 10,000-square-mile service area. Partners in providing health care include the Austin Independent School District, the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians and the Community Care Collaborative, a unique and ambitious integrated delivery system for Travis County residents living at or below 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level.
Seton employs almost 12,700 and is a major contributor to the Central Texas economy. Over the past decade, Seton has donated $2.5 billion in care and $2 billion in community benefit with help from generous donors and volunteers.
Seton is a member of Ascension Health, the healthcare delivery subsidiary of Ascension. For more information, please visit
www.seton.net.
About Ascension
Ascension (
www.ascension.org) is a faith-based healthcare organization dedicated to transformation through innovation across the continuum of care. As the largest non-profit health system in the U.S. and the world’s largest Catholic health system, Ascension is committed to delivering person-centered care to all with special attention to those who are poor and vulnerable. In FY2014, Ascension provided $1.8 billion in care of persons living in poverty and other community benefit programs. More than 150,000 associates and 35,000 affiliated providers serve in 1,900 sites of care – including 131 hospitals and more than 30 senior care facilities – in 23 states and the District of Columbia. In addition to healthcare delivery, Ascension subsidiaries provide a variety of services and solutions including physician practice management, venture capital investing, treasury management, biomedical engineering, clinical care management, information services, risk management, and contracting through Ascension’s own group purchasing organization.