Robby Spring
Patient Advocate & Healthcare Strategist
Bridging lived experience, science, innovation and policy to improve healthcare
Healthcare decisions, innovations, and conversations are often shaped without a full understanding of the patient experience. When lived experience is missing, introduced too late, or disconnected from the broader health system, important gaps can be overlooked and promising ideas can stall before they reach patients.
I help healthcare organizations and innovators close the gap between what innovation makes possible and what patients experience, so what gets built, funded, and delivered works for the people it’s meant to serve.
Through speaking and moderation, patient experience and adoption reviews, strategic advisory, and partnerships, I help organizations identify what they are missing, bring different perspectives together, and turn those insights into meaningful action.
With 15+ years across academia, hospitals, government, industry, and health charities, alongside lived experience as a breast cancer survivor and care partner, I understand both how healthcare works and what it feels like to navigate it.
Work With Me
My work is especially focused on oncology innovation, survivorship, patient engagement, advisory boards, access, precision medicine, and health system change.
01
Speaking, Moderation, Panels & Facilitation
Bringing patient experience and healthcare expertise into events, discussions, and sessions.
Speaking, Moderation, Panels & Facilitation
Bringing patient experience and healthcare expertise into events, discussions, and sessions.
For conferences, events, and team sessions.
I speak, moderate, and facilitate conversations about patient experience, cancer survivorship, healthcare innovation, and health-system change. I bring lived experience and professional fluency across science, industry, and policy, helping audiences connect different perspectives and examine what they mean for patients.
Contact about speaking
02
Patient Experience & Adoption Reviews
Identifying patient-facing friction, unmet needs, and opportunities to improve healthcare products, services, and journeys.
Patient Experience & Adoption Reviews
Identifying patient-facing friction, unmet needs, and opportunities to improve healthcare products, services, and journeys.
For health companies, care organizations, founders, and investors.
I review healthcare products, services, and patient journeys to identify friction, trust gaps, and unmet needs. Drawing on lived experience and healthcare strategy, I help teams understand what could work better for patients and what may stand in the way of meaningful adoption.
Contact about a review
03
Strategic Advisory & Patient Engagement
Helping teams involve patients in strategy and development, from defining questions to informing decisions.
Strategic Advisory & Patient Engagement
Helping teams involve patients in strategy and development, from defining questions to informing decisions.
For healthcare and life sciences teams, innovators, nonprofits, and decision-makers.
I help teams bring patient perspectives into strategy, product development, communication, and access decisions. My work includes advising on patient engagement and designing or facilitating patient advisory boards, co-creation sessions, and stakeholder conversations, so patient input shapes the direction rather than simply validating it at the end.
Contact about advisory
04
Partnerships, Media & Storytelling
Strategic partnerships, interviews, commentary, and campaigns across cancer, survivorship, women’s health, and patient experience.
Partnerships, Media & Storytelling
Strategic partnerships, interviews, commentary, and campaigns across cancer, survivorship, women’s health, and patient experience.
For media outlets, organizations, and aligned brands.
I contribute to interviews, commentary, writing, and campaigns about breast cancer, survivorship, medically induced menopause, endocrine therapy, hair regrowth, dating and relationships, women’s health, patient experience, and healthcare innovation. I combine personal storytelling with a broader understanding of healthcare, connecting individual experiences to the issues behind them.
Contact about partnershipsAbout
I am a patient advocate and healthcare strategist working at the intersection of oncology innovation, patient engagement, survivorship, access, precision medicine, and health system change.
Before becoming a patient myself, I built a career across research, health innovation, commercialization, and public affairs. I bring both sides of the lens: a professional perspective shaped by graduate training in neuroscience and translational research and experience across the health system, alongside lived experience as a breast cancer survivor and care partner. That combination gives me a rare perspective across patients, science, industry, policy and the health system, and shapes how I approach advocacy, strategy, facilitation, and patient engagement.
As a co-founder of HIIO (Health Innovation Implementation in Ontario), I have firsthand experience mapping how health innovations move from idea through implementation and adoption.
I currently serve as an Advocacy Constituency Team Lead with the Canadian Cancer Society, am a Key Collaborator with Rethink Breast Cancer, and founded and lead the CDL Cancer Patient Contribution Group at Creative Destruction Lab. I also served on the CDA-AMC advisory panel that developed a national framework for the standardized assessment of cancer biomarkers in Canada.
Alongside this work, I advocate publicly about cancer and survivorship, which keeps me closely connected to the questions, challenges, and priorities patients are navigating.
Featured
Selected conversations, writing and media across healthcare, innovation and lived experience.
Let’s Connect
For speaking, moderation, advisory, patient engagement, partnerships, media, or other inquiries, reach out and share what you’re working on.
Follow My Work
Follow my work and writing across patient advocacy, health innovation, survivorship, and life after breast cancer.