Linda Fleisher, PhD, MPH
The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
Dr. Fleisher PI, is a Senior Scientist and Associate Research Professor with a focus on health communications, patient engagement and use of technology to support patients and their families. She has appointments in the Research Institute at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Perelman School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania and the Fox Chase Cancer Center. She has considerable experience in behavioral research, health education, development and evaluation of Ehealth and Mhealth interventions, health disparities and patient/community engagement. She was the Project Director and Principal Investigator for the NCI’s Cancer Information Service in the tri-state area for over 17 years, serving over ½ million callers with in-depth information and resources addressing the continuum of cancer prevention, risk, detection, treatment and survivorship. She also founded Fox Chase Cancer Center’s Patient Resource Education Center in 2000, which is one of the first multi-media patient education programs at a comprehensive cancer center, serving over 30,000 people. The REC includes a LiveHelp online program for patients and consumers to ask questions with trained health educators and listings of recommended websites that are evaluated using a scientifically developed tool. She led the development of numerous patient education and decision making interventions for cancer patients and survivors as well as a current study focused on informed decision making in clinical trials. She has developed technical guides on health literacy and patient navigation for professionals and brings these skills and knowledge to the development of patient education tools and resources. Her work has required building networks and partnerships with diverse audiences, including health care organizations, software developers, patients, and community leaders, including a tri-state health disparities network under the NCI’s Cancer Information Service and the current Cancer Health Disparities Network serving 19 states. She was Co-PI on the Pennsylvania Patient Navigation Demonstration Project and co-founder of the PA Navigator Network. She has served as member of the Academy of Oncology Nurse and Patient Navigator’s Steering Committee since 2010, and is the co-chair of the Technology and Innovation Committee. She joined the faculty at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and is leveraging her extensive background in health communications, digital health and partnerships to lead a digital health initiative focused on translating knowledge of evaluation and evidence to health app developers, distributors and consumers to ensure that the explosion of mobile health tools are evidence-based and their impact on health improvement are validated.
