How Salto Health Solves The Cancer Support Gap: Why “Let Me Know If You Need Anything” Isn’t Enough

By Your Health Magazine Contributor

Your Health Magazine Contributor

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How Salto Health Solves The Cancer Support Gap: Why “Let Me Know If You Need Anything” Isn’t Enough

Learning that a loved one has cancer typically triggers strong feelings of both compassion and confusion. You want to help by providing comfort and care, but you don’t know exactly what will help or how to best offer it. Salto Health offers help for those facing those feelings.

“It’s challenging to offer help after a friend or loved one’s cancer diagnosis for several reasons,” says Shannon Miller, Founder and CEO of Salto Health. “Of course you want to help, but you don’t want to be pushy or ask too many questions. It can be hard to know where caring ends and too personal begins, and that line is different for everyone.”

Miller is a seven-time Olympic medalist, ovarian cancer survivor, and longtime cancer advocate. Following her own cancer journey and more than 15 years of work in cancer survivorship, awareness, and research, she founded Salto Health to address a common challenge facing patients and their loved ones: people want to help but often don’t know how. Salto Health is a curated support registry that allows people going through cancer to identify the practical products and services they need and easily share those needs with their support network.

As a cancer survivor herself who has spent over 15 years committed to cancer advocacy, Miller shares, “I know that survivors and caregivers struggle with finding the best way to offer and accept help. I wanted to make it easier for survivors to understand which products could help during treatment and recovery, and to easily share those needs with the friends and family who want to help.”

Salto Health makes it easier for survivors to accept help

“When someone is first diagnosed with cancer, they often aren’t sure what they need,” Miller explains. “So having someone say, ‘Let me know if you need anything,’ just adds one more task to their list. Multiply that by everyone who asks, and it can become overwhelming and exhausting. They don’t want anyone to feel bad, but they don’t know what will help.”

Salto Health simplifies the process and puts meaningful support within reach. It helps survivors identify what they need and provides an easy process for others to meet those needs.

“We designed the Salto Health platform to be a place to find trusted resources, practical comfort, and simpler ways to organize support and everyday needs during treatment and recovery,” Miller says. “And it does all that without adding more stress to an already difficult journey.”

Survivors and caregivers use Salto Health to create a Gift List of the care they need, which is searchable by name and city through its platform. The platform is built by selecting items carefully curated by Miller and her team to provide practical items often needed for treatment, comfort, and recovery. Once built, the Gift List can be shared with a simple link so those who want to help know where to start.

Salto Health makes it easier to ask for help by reshaping the conversation. Survivors only have to name their needs once in a private setting when they have the time to focus and think. It also does away with the need to repeat the same difficult conversation every time someone offers to help.

Salto Health helps survivors navigate the cancer care journey

Very few people are prepared for navigating cancer when they receive their diagnosis. Consequently, they don’t know exactly how to respond when they are offered help.

“Often, the survivor doesn’t yet know what they need when those early offers for help begin to appear,” Miller says. “Most support arrives in the first week after a diagnosis, before treatment has even started. Your world has turned upside down. You’re managing the mental, emotional, financial, and physical toll while trying to figure out how to respond. By the time treatment side effects or post-surgery needs set in, the moment has often passed, and many people are no longer asking.”

Salto Health helps survivors navigate the cancer care journey by providing not only a source for helpful resources but also insightful guidance on when and why those resources are needed. The platform organizes resources into different need categories and provides articles that explain what survivors may be feeling, when conditions could set in, and what might provide some relief.

“You may not understand the importance of skin care for highly sensitive skin until week three of chemotherapy,” Miller says. “You may not think about port-accessible clothing so you don’t have to undress in a cold clinic every time you go in. You’re learning as you go, and no one has all the answers at the start.”

Each item Salto Health carries is special because it helps someone in a different way. There’s gentle cream for skin that’s feeling the effects of radiation, cooling bedding to help with night sweats, nausea support for the days when even water is hard to keep down, and wigs that can help someone feel like themselves again. Salto Health makes it easy for survivors to see what they’ll need and for concerned family and friends to help supply it.

“I understand it can feel strange to make a list for yourself,” Miller says, “but the people around you are already asking how to help. Salto Health gives them an answer. We often hear from people who weren’t sure it would work or that anyone would buy anything, and then were surprised by how quickly friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers stepped in.”