TOUCH, The Black Breast Cancer Alliance believes in the power of telling your breastie story. We also believe that the medical and healthcare communities need to do a better job of hearing and prioritizing the voices of the Black Breast Cancer community.
Our partner, Ciitizen, has helped create a study to do just that: listen to the diverse stories of breasties.
Without leaving the comfort of your own home, you can participate in a paid research study that wants to know: How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted your life and your breast cancer care over the past year?
What is Ciitizen?
Getting all of your records in one place can be a frustrating and time-consuming process, with seemingly endless emails, phone calls, paperwork, signatures, and out-of-the-way trips to retrieve hard copies. Ciitizen founder and CEO Anil Sethi knows the medical record struggle firsthand. When his sister, Tania, was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, they saw 23 different specialists at 17 separate medical institutions in a span of just 6 months. Tracking down and collating her medical records from each visit turned out to be impossible, so none of these doctors or hospitals had Tania’s full health history. After Tania passed away in 2017, Anil finally got his hands on her complete health records and realized that the comprehensive data found there could have given her more time.
So, he created Ciitizen: a completely free health technology platform that helps cancer patients to collect and digitize their medical records quickly and then store them in one organized and accessible place. Ciitizen takes away the burden of chasing down your health records and lets you spend that energy fighting and beating breast cancer instead.
TOUCH and Ciitizen share a fundamental mission: to eradicate cancer. In order to do that, we need cancer patients to understand the power and value of their health data. With all of your health information at your fingertips, you and your doctors are better equipped to make fully informed decisions about your care. More than that, taking control over your own health data also means that you can more easily participate in and advance important breast cancer research that will help to eradicate Black Breast Cancer.
Ricki Fairley, TOUCH CEO and TNBC survivor, uses Ciitizen to keep all of her health records in one straight-forward, accessible place. Now, when she goes to any of her doctors—her oncologist, her eye doctor, her dentist—she can simply hand over her phone and let them see the up-to-date lists of her current medications and treatments for themselves.
There are enough stressors during breast cancer treatment. Ciitizen and TOUCH believe that your health records shouldn’t be one of them.