Creating Space for Patients at the Cancer Rehabilitation Institute

First started in early March 2013, thanks to a generous estate commitment, the University of Northern Colorado Cancer Rehabilitation Institute (UNCCRI) Quasi-Endowment Fund surpassed the $1 million mark earlier this year. UNCCRI, founded in 1996, has grown into an essential part of both UNC and Northern Colorado’s communities. The UNCCRI specializes in exercise-based cancer rehabilitation and is the only facility of its kind. More than 500 students have served over 1,000 patients by working hands-on with them to find ways to improve their outcomes during cancer treatment while simultaneously conducting clinical research.

The institute hires undergraduate and graduate students as interns, each of working directly with patients. Since becoming the Institute’s director in 2013, Reid Hayward, Ph.D., knows that more interns and staff mean more patients being helped.

“We’ve got all these people that need to be trained, but we don’t have enough interns to cover them, so we’ve come up with some strategies. We do things like having a practicum that we offer where students can enroll in the class and part of that is training patients. We have our undergraduate exercise oncology class where we have opportunities for those students to get involved as well,” said Hayward.

Another way UNCCRI has gone about increasing their capacity to train patients is by hiring graduating students to continue working after completing their internships. Getting as many patients as possible into their program and experiencing improved health outcomes is the top priority for everyone at the Institute.

Now that the UNCCRI fund has reached over $1 million, the institute can expand the number of hours devoted to patient care by hiring patient-facing staff. One of the qualifications for the new staff positions currently being created is to have UNCCRI’s certification, the Clinical Cancer Exercise Specialist certification. Individuals who have completed the certification have over 500 hours of training with patients and have passed an exam proving their practical skills and knowledge with a program like the Institute’s.

The decision to increase the number of trainers will allow patients to move off the waitlist and into the UNCCRI’s training room, working toward better health outcomes. Creating more opportunities for patients will also increase the amount of data available for students to use for research, a secondary benefit for the educational component of UNCCRI.

“Really what [the fund reaching $1 million] is doing is just solidifying the future of the Institute,” said Hayward.

Things like exercise bands and balls that wear out relatively quickly and aren’t the most glamorous purchases, but they are important for helping patients build strength and balance. Large equipment purchases—such as new treadmills, weight racks, and continuous heart rate monitors—are costly but essential for patient health, ongoing research, and hands-on student learning. None of these things would be possible without the contributions the Institute has received over the nearly three decades it’s been open.

Every dollar invested in UNCCRI allows the Institute to grow and improve the quality of life for even more cancer survivors. Thanks to the support of the UNC community, UNCCRI has a firm foundation to continue building on.