Roadmap to engagement: Bringing patient partners into cancer research and beyond

The University of Kansas Cancer Center (KU Cancer Center) initiated an engagement program to leverage the lived experience of individuals and families with cancer. KU Cancer Center faculty, staff, and patient partners built an infrastructure to achieve a patient-designed, patient-led, and research-informed engagement program called Patient and Investigator Voices Organizing Together (PIVOT). This special communication offers an engagement roadmap that can be replicated, scaled, and adopted at other cancer centers and academic health systems. PIVOT demonstrates that collaboration among academic leaders, investigators, and people with a lived experience yields a patient-centered, vibrant environment that enriches the research enterprise.