HealthTree Foundation Pillar One: Personalized, Lifetime Support and Education

Now that HealthTree Foundation is supporting people with all types of leukemia and their care partners, we wanted to share with you some of the exciting things that you will begin to see on our HealthTree Foundation for Leukemia website. 

Our Foundation has grown significantly within the last three years, with many developed programs improving and even more successful programs being developed. 

HealthTree's model consists of 3 core pillars into which all of our programs can be organized. 

We believe that by encouraging our community to interact with our programs through these three pillars, patients and caregivers alike will remain empowered, educated individuals who make important connections with their leukemia community and participate in key research that leads to a leukemia cure. 

Today, we will highlight the first pillar of the HealthTree model: Personalized, Lifetime Support and Education. 

The Purpose of Personalized, Lifetime Support and Education within the HealthTree Model

Several of our programs at HealthTree are geared towards personalized, lifetime support and education. We believe that by empowering leukemia patients and their loved ones to learn all that they can about the disease, find specialists who stay on top of the latest and greatest, and become active partners in their care will both live longer and live a higher quality of life. 

In fact, we have seen that through the many blood cancer patients and care partners that we have helped along the way. 

When these empowered members of our community feel supported and have a trusted team to which they can ask their questions, there’s no limit to how involved and active they can be in their own care.

Blood cancer patient Jean Becker shares, 

“My first observation when engaging with HealthTree, was that it is patient-centered/focused, so I could access and understand information. 

The breadth and depth of resources as well as timeliness (current), is so helpful and supportive. No matter what my questions are, from testing to treatments, to side effects, I can always find answers, information, or a direction.

And if they aren't there, I can ask, and get answers. 

The community is so supportive. The range of experts and access to them, and their knowledge through the courses, or regular webinars, chapters, etc. has been crucial to my journey, as I feel prepared to advocate for myself and others with good information and data.” 

HealthTree Programs within Pillar One: Personalized Lifetime Support and Education 

HealthTree News for Leukemia

Part of providing personalized lifetime education includes publishing up-to-date, easy-to-understand information about the latest and greatest in leukemia. On our news site, you can read articles about newly approved leukemia medications, results of clinical trials, leukemia patient stories, and much more. 

“The HealthTree Foundation programs have helped keep me up to date on the ever-changing landscape of treatments,” says blood cancer patient Angela Perez, “I can always count on HealthTree to have the latest news on the newest treatments and clinical trials available.”

HealthTree Podcast*coming soon in 2024

We will have a separate podcast program for each type of leukemia. We started our acute myeloid leukemia (AML) podcast in September 2021. Throughout 2024 we will start an acute lymphoblastic leukemia podcast, a chronic lymphocytic leukemia podcast and a chronic myeloid leukemia podcast.

Our podcast program, in which we interview leukemia specialists about their open clinical trials and other hot topics in leukemia, was the very first program within our foundation.

Jenny, HealthTree's Founder and CEO, as a patient herself, was having a hard time finding a clinical trial that she qualified for in her area. She decided to take things into her own hands and start interviewing doctors to make it easier for her and others like her to understand clinical trials and know how to sign up for one. 

HealthTree Webinars *coming soon in 2024

We will have a separate webinar program for each type of leukemia. We started our acute myeloid leukemia (AML) webinars in October 2021. Throughout 2024 we will host webinars for webinars acute lymphoblastic leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia and chronic myeloid leukemia.

These webinars will be hosted within Adult and Caregiver Chapters. These topic-based chapters will host webinars on a variety of topics taught by leukemia experts, nurses or other members of the leukemia healthcare community. We will also invite seasoned leukemia patients and caregivers to speak and share their experiences. We are dedicated to providing personalized education through these webinars by inviting top experts to educate the community on the most crucial leukemia topics. 

HealthTree University

Perhaps our most popular program, HealthTree University will drastically change the way that the leukemia community can educate themselves about complex leukemia topics. 

The HealthTree University team interviews leukemia specialists at conferences and other events to get their expert opinions on questions that matter to leukemia patients. The original curriculum was developed by Cindy Chmielewski, a former teacher and blood cancer patient (and also Twitter queen @myelomateacher). 

You can view HealthTree University for each type of leukemia here:

Acute myeloid leukemia

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia

Chronic myeloid leukemia

We will be adding content to HTU for each leukemia in early 2024 so continue to check back for new units. 

HealthTree Patient Experience Team

In addition to education, we strive to provide support to each of our community members.

Our Patient Experience team, led by Ana Sahagun, consists of a patient navigation and medical navigation team.

The Patient Navigation team can help you find leukemia resources, answer questions about our website, and troubleshoot any issues you may have. 

Our Medical Navigation team can help you answer questions that you have about leukemia (although they cannot give medical advice), aid you in understanding what your personalized lab values mean, and provide insight on general leukemia medication questions that you may have. 

You can contact them by emailing support@healthtree.org, or calling/texting +1 800 709 1113. 

HealthTree for Leukemia Website

The rest of our website includes many resources such as: 

• Finding a Leukemia Specialist
• Leukemia 101 Pages
• HealthTree Journal

You can explore our website or contact our team if you are looking for specific resources.

Invitation to Participate in the Future of Leukemia

At HealthTree, we believe no one should have to face leukemia alone.

We encourage you to utilize the programs within Pillar One to educate yourself, your loved ones, and find personalized, lifetime support as you go along your leukemia journey. The next step is to become a part of the leukemia cure by participating in HealthTree Cure Hub's leukemia research. You can learn more about the portal and create an account here.

Tomorrow we will discuss Pillar 2: Meaningful Patient to Patient Connections.

If you'd like to be notified when our coming soon programs will be available, sign up for our newsletter. We send biweekly snapshots of all of our recently published articles, new program releases and announcements of upcoming events to everyone who signs up!