June 01, 2016
Renton, WA—Intermountain Healthcare, Stanford Cancer Institute, Providence Health & Services, and Syapse joined together today to announce a new consortium to advance cancer care through data sharing and increase access to clinical trials. Responding to Vice President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot Initiative, the Oncology Precision Network (OPN) will share aggregated clinical, molecular, and treatment data through an advanced software platform, rapidly bringing the most promising treatment insights to cancer patients and physicians.
This unprecedented collaboration between two of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health systems, one of the country’s premiere academic research centers, and Syapse, a leading precision medicine software company, aims to find breakthroughs in cancer care by leveraging previously untapped real-world cancer data while preserving privacy, security, and data rights.
The OPN consortium will open access to precision medicine and clinical trials for previously underserved cancer patients. The vast majority of cancer patients are not treated by major cancer centers and don’t benefit from high volume based analytics. The OPN will help extend this knowledge to communities across the country.
The OPN members anticipate an immediate 100,000 data sets in the OPN database. When fully implemented, the OPN will impact 50,000 new cancer patients per year, representing three percent of the nation’s total; 200,000 total cancer patients per year; and have more than 1.5 million historical cancer cases. The OPN consortium comprises data and physicians across 11 states, 79 hospitals and 800 clinics. The consortium hopes to include other health systems later in the year, with the long-term goal of impacting cancer care across the United States.
“This consortium exists because we all arrived at the same important conclusion: we need to collaborate across health systems to cure cancer,” said Dr. Lincoln Nadauld, executive director of Intermountain Precision Genomics. “Through collaboration, we emphasize the need to learn together to empower physicians and patients in finding solutions to cancer without increasing costs.”
“The highest quality cancer care is predicated on clinical trial participation and currently very few cancer patients can access trials that are matched based on the genetic make-up of their cancer,” said Dr. Thomas Brown, executive director of the Swedish Cancer Institute and co-chair Providence Health & Services Personalized Medicine Program. “This partnership will further our efforts to provide customized therapies that are based on the biological features of both the patient and their unique cancer.”
“This dynamic network will also allow us to approach precision oncology from a ‘big data’ point of view,” said Dr. Jim Ford, associate professor of Medicine (Oncology) and Genetics at Stanford and director of Clinical Cancer Genomics at the Stanford Cancer Institute. “By aggregating all of our real patient experiences, we will rapidly expand our ability to learn how to choose the best targeted treatments for our cancer patients based on the molecular profile of their tumor and our informatics based research.”
Individually, each of the health care organizations have been storing invaluable information about patients’ health history, cancer status, labs, molecular and genetic data, and treatments, allowing physicians to provide the right kind of treatment at the right time. Collectively, the OPN will use the Syapse technology to link aggregated data between the geographically disparate health systems. This work allows the OPN consortium to increase inter-operability of data sharing, empowering physicians with information that would previously have been unavailable.
“Through the OPN, we are leading the way in the clinical implementation of precision medicine, turning the Cancer Moonshot’s vision of improved cancer care into a reality for patients in the community,” said Jonathan Hirsch, Syapse founder and president. “Our work has demonstrated that precision medicine improves survival and reduces costs. We believe that precision medicine will be the core enabling technology for health systems to transform to at-risk, value-based care.”
The OPN consortium builds on prior work by each of the parties, including a study of the clinical effectiveness of precision medicine by Intermountain Healthcare and Syapse. This study demonstrated a doubling of progression free survival without increasing the cost of care in stage 4 patients. Additionally, Providence, through Swedish Cancer Institute, developed a sophisticated algorithm to match patients with clinical trials most likely to benefit their “molecular type” of cancer.
About Syapse
Syapse drives health care transformation through precision medicine, enabling provider systems to improve clinical outcomes, streamline operations, and shift to new payment models. Syapse Precision Medicine Platform is a comprehensive software suite used by leading health systems to support the clinical implementation of precision medicine in oncology and other service lines. This category-defining platform enables clinical and genomic data integration, decision support, care coordination, and quality improvement at point of care. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Syapse is backed by Ascension Ventures, Safeguard Scientifics (NYSE:SFE), and Social Capital. For more information, visit syapse.com.
About Intermountain Healthcare
Intermountain Healthcare is a Utah-based, not-for-profit system of 22 hospitals, 185 clinics, a Medical Group with over 1,400 employed physicians and advanced practice clinicians, a health plans division called SelectHealth, and other health services. Helping people live the healthiest lives possible, Intermountain is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare through high quality and sustainable costs. For more information about Intermountain, visit Intermountaninhealthcare.org.
About Providence Health and Services
Providence Health & Services is a not-for-profit Catholic health care ministry committed to providing for the needs of the communities it serves – especially for those who are poor and vulnerable. Providence's services include 34 hospitals, 600 physician clinics, senior services, supportive housing and many other health and educational services. The health system and its affiliates employ more than 82,000 people across five states – Alaska, California, Montana, Oregon and Washington – with its system office located in Renton, Washington. In 2015, Providence provided more than $951 million in community benefit. Providence Health & Services continues a tradition of caring that the Sisters of Providence began nearly 160 years ago. Through its cancer institute model, Providence is dedicated to national leadership in personalized medicine and innovative research, delivering the best treatments to patients close to home and, when necessary, connecting patients to world-class physicians and caregivers across our network.
About Stanford Cancer Institute (SCI)
SCI is a National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center dedicated and resourced to catalyze the vast scientific, technological and human capabilities of Stanford University and Stanford Medicine to advance understanding of cancer and rapidly translate research discoveries into improved prevention strategies, diagnostics and therapies.
This unprecedented collaboration between two of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health systems, one of the country’s premiere academic research centers, and Syapse, a leading precision medicine software company, aims to find breakthroughs in cancer care by leveraging previously untapped real-world cancer data while preserving privacy, security, and data rights.
The OPN consortium will open access to precision medicine and clinical trials for previously underserved cancer patients. The vast majority of cancer patients are not treated by major cancer centers and don’t benefit from high volume based analytics. The OPN will help extend this knowledge to communities across the country.
The OPN members anticipate an immediate 100,000 data sets in the OPN database. When fully implemented, the OPN will impact 50,000 new cancer patients per year, representing three percent of the nation’s total; 200,000 total cancer patients per year; and have more than 1.5 million historical cancer cases. The OPN consortium comprises data and physicians across 11 states, 79 hospitals and 800 clinics. The consortium hopes to include other health systems later in the year, with the long-term goal of impacting cancer care across the United States.
“This consortium exists because we all arrived at the same important conclusion: we need to collaborate across health systems to cure cancer,” said Dr. Lincoln Nadauld, executive director of Intermountain Precision Genomics. “Through collaboration, we emphasize the need to learn together to empower physicians and patients in finding solutions to cancer without increasing costs.”
“The highest quality cancer care is predicated on clinical trial participation and currently very few cancer patients can access trials that are matched based on the genetic make-up of their cancer,” said Dr. Thomas Brown, executive director of the Swedish Cancer Institute and co-chair Providence Health & Services Personalized Medicine Program. “This partnership will further our efforts to provide customized therapies that are based on the biological features of both the patient and their unique cancer.”
“This dynamic network will also allow us to approach precision oncology from a ‘big data’ point of view,” said Dr. Jim Ford, associate professor of Medicine (Oncology) and Genetics at Stanford and director of Clinical Cancer Genomics at the Stanford Cancer Institute. “By aggregating all of our real patient experiences, we will rapidly expand our ability to learn how to choose the best targeted treatments for our cancer patients based on the molecular profile of their tumor and our informatics based research.”
Individually, each of the health care organizations have been storing invaluable information about patients’ health history, cancer status, labs, molecular and genetic data, and treatments, allowing physicians to provide the right kind of treatment at the right time. Collectively, the OPN will use the Syapse technology to link aggregated data between the geographically disparate health systems. This work allows the OPN consortium to increase inter-operability of data sharing, empowering physicians with information that would previously have been unavailable.
“Through the OPN, we are leading the way in the clinical implementation of precision medicine, turning the Cancer Moonshot’s vision of improved cancer care into a reality for patients in the community,” said Jonathan Hirsch, Syapse founder and president. “Our work has demonstrated that precision medicine improves survival and reduces costs. We believe that precision medicine will be the core enabling technology for health systems to transform to at-risk, value-based care.”
The OPN consortium builds on prior work by each of the parties, including a study of the clinical effectiveness of precision medicine by Intermountain Healthcare and Syapse. This study demonstrated a doubling of progression free survival without increasing the cost of care in stage 4 patients. Additionally, Providence, through Swedish Cancer Institute, developed a sophisticated algorithm to match patients with clinical trials most likely to benefit their “molecular type” of cancer.
About Syapse
Syapse drives health care transformation through precision medicine, enabling provider systems to improve clinical outcomes, streamline operations, and shift to new payment models. Syapse Precision Medicine Platform is a comprehensive software suite used by leading health systems to support the clinical implementation of precision medicine in oncology and other service lines. This category-defining platform enables clinical and genomic data integration, decision support, care coordination, and quality improvement at point of care. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Syapse is backed by Ascension Ventures, Safeguard Scientifics (NYSE:SFE), and Social Capital. For more information, visit syapse.com.
About Intermountain Healthcare
Intermountain Healthcare is a Utah-based, not-for-profit system of 22 hospitals, 185 clinics, a Medical Group with over 1,400 employed physicians and advanced practice clinicians, a health plans division called SelectHealth, and other health services. Helping people live the healthiest lives possible, Intermountain is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare through high quality and sustainable costs. For more information about Intermountain, visit Intermountaninhealthcare.org.
About Providence Health and Services
Providence Health & Services is a not-for-profit Catholic health care ministry committed to providing for the needs of the communities it serves – especially for those who are poor and vulnerable. Providence's services include 34 hospitals, 600 physician clinics, senior services, supportive housing and many other health and educational services. The health system and its affiliates employ more than 82,000 people across five states – Alaska, California, Montana, Oregon and Washington – with its system office located in Renton, Washington. In 2015, Providence provided more than $951 million in community benefit. Providence Health & Services continues a tradition of caring that the Sisters of Providence began nearly 160 years ago. Through its cancer institute model, Providence is dedicated to national leadership in personalized medicine and innovative research, delivering the best treatments to patients close to home and, when necessary, connecting patients to world-class physicians and caregivers across our network.
About Stanford Cancer Institute (SCI)
SCI is a National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center dedicated and resourced to catalyze the vast scientific, technological and human capabilities of Stanford University and Stanford Medicine to advance understanding of cancer and rapidly translate research discoveries into improved prevention strategies, diagnostics and therapies.
