AccessHope, a City of Hope subsidiary that offers large employer groups access to cancer treatment expertise, has partnered with Northwestern Medicine and plans to add more comprehensive cancer centers to its network.
AccessHope offers collaborative support to community oncologists, including diagnosis and treatment plan consultation, recommendations on possible clinical trials, and precision medicine guidance.
Duarte, Calif.-based City of Hope, a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, said that demand from employers across the country led it to establish AccessHope, which launched in October. It invested $40 million in the subsidiary. Today, for-profit AccessHope serves 34 employers, including 11 Fortune 500 companies, with approximately 1.95 million members.
A recent story in Modern Healthcare noted that Amazon is one of the employers working with AccessHope. “The partnership allows Amazon employees to request a review of their diagnosis and treatment plan from City of Hope specialists, who may recommend improvements to the plan if appropriate,” the story notes. “Amazon employees may also travel to City of Hope for an in-person evaluation. Workers can call a cancer support phone line staffed by oncology nurses who will answer questions about treatment or provide emotional support.”
Northwestern Medicine will extend its subspecialists’ expertise to AccessHope’s Accountable Precision Oncology, Expert Advisory Review and Cancer Support Line services throughout the Midwest, enabling AccessHope’s members and their treating oncologists to be matched with Northwestern Medicine’s cancer specialists for case review and treatment plan recommendations.
In a recent interview with Healthcare Innovation, AccessHope CEO Mark Stadler explained its raison d’etre and business model.
He said City of Hope looked at its data and understood that outcomes were better at leading cancer centers. “Subspecialties of cancer are growing at a rapid rate, and oncologists are having an increasingly difficult time keeping up with precision medicine,” he explained.
City of Hope wanted to extend the reach of its expertise to have a wider impact and started looking at stakeholders that might be a good market to approach. It identified large self-funded employers as a natural partner to work with.
In listening to those employers, City of Hope found they wanted something that was easy to implement and supported patients across their cancer journey. They also wanted something that was complementary to their existing health plan but better than programs currently in place that tend to focus on utilization management as opposed to care optimization, Stadler said. “They didn’t want utilization management or redirecting patients exclusively into centers of excellence; they wanted to bring those centers of excellence out to plan members.”
“In designing a solution, we realized we can’t think as a hospital, we need to think as a nimble organization, so we formed AccessHope,” he added.
There are over 200 cancer subspecialties, with research rapidly changing treatment options. “Most oncologists are not entirely confident in applying precision medicine. Surveys would tell you that four out of five oncologists are uncomfortable when it comes to navigating through precision medicine decisions,” Stadler said.
AccessHope identifies members with cancer and reaches out to their oncologists. “We come alongside that oncologist and review the treatment plan and bring them recommendations and additional information they may have been unaware of, and it is a win-win for the patient and oncologist,” Stadler said. “The patient often cannot travel to the cancer center, and certainly during COVID, can’t get to a center of excellence. We bring that out to the patient via their oncologist and empower that oncologist with the tools they need to optimize that care. We are impacting more than 80 percent of cases we engage, supporting patients remaining in their own communities, with local physicians of their choice."
AccessHope also integrates with an employer’s other healthcare partners, including health plans, third-party administrators and pharmacy benefit managers to provide services.
The Northwestern Medicine partnership goes live on Jan. 1. Stadler said the strategy for AccessHope was to start with funding from City of Hope and to use its research and oncology capabilities, but to bring in additional foundational partners located throughout the United States. “We aspire to bring on four to five additional partners with City of Hope,” he said. “We would like them across the country and all within that category of NCI comprehensive cancer center designation and there are only 50 or so across the country. We wanted somebody in the Midwest. We will be seeking partners in the South, Southeast and Northeast as well. We want that to add capabilities to the organization for scale, but also build the regional and national presence for large employers, who want their employees to recognize the significance of the program. Each cancer center brings some unique research capabilities. It allows us to create a more comprehensive program.”
In a statement, Leonidas Platanias, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, said that “regardless of where the individual lives, we will be able to provide them with access to Lurie Cancer Center expertise, knowledge of clinical trials and the latest in cancer research.”
