Witness CARES, LLC Receives over $290K in National Funding for Product Development

April 2019, Witness CARES, LLC was awarded a highly competitive Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR R41) Phase I grant for over $296,000 from the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute to support scientific excellence and technological innovation in areas critical to American priorities. Dr. Deborah Erwin and Dee Johnson serve as multiple Principal Investigators for this 1-year pilot program to establish proof of concept and feasibility for the innovative process Witness CARES is developing for increasing colorectal cancer screening among Medicaid patients.  Witness CARES is partnering with YourCare health insurance company and has a sub-award with Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, NY to conduct this pilot. 

The product to be developed in this STTR Phase I study is a specialized set of services and electronic prototype tool to optimize and predict CRC screening for Medicaid clients based on our behavioral research, intervention development and delivery. This initiative is relatively rare, as very few STTR grants are awarded for a behavioral intervention.  Successful creation of this product will reduce gaps in care for health insurers and reduce disparities in CRC mortality.