BlueCross BlueShield Association (BCBS) and Blue Health Intelligence (BHI) have announced Thrive Earlier Detection (Thrive) as the winner of the BlueCross BlueShield Data Innovation Challenge. The company was chosen for its proposal to find new, cost-effective ways to detect cancer at an earlier stage and identify and predict populations that will most likely benefit from this approach.
In line with BCBS’s goal of improving the health of all Americans, BCBS and BHI collaborated with HIMSS and Healthbox, a HIMSS Innovation Company, to implement the challenge with the goal of creating meaningful solutions that don’t just break through barriers, but also increase patients’ access to care, make healthcare work more efficiently and improve health.
Five finalists were chosen in September and given two months to test their hypotheses using a limited HIPAA-compliant-dataset. In November, the five finalists presented their findings to the Challenge’s Selection Committee, who then selected Thrive as the winner.
Thrive focuses on incorporating earlier cancer detection into routine medical care to extend and save lives. Thrive is developing CancerSEEK, a liquid biopsy test designed to detect many cancers at earlier stages of disease, which will serve as the core of an integrated service offering. Thrive plans to leverage the dataset to gain further insights into the health-economic impact of earlier cancer detection.
Thrive will receive:
· Access to a subset of BHI data for six months
· Data support including consulting support from BHI team
· Access to BCBS leadership through mentorship and participation at BCBS events
· Mentorship and advice from BCBS companies’ and leaders of the Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS)
The other finalists were:
· Livongo, which uses technology to empower those with chronic conditions to live better and heathier lives.
· Pager, which serves as a collaboration hub between consumers and their care team.
· Wildflower Health, which offers responsive software solutions for families to navigate and access healthcare resources, primarily during pregnancy and through pediatrics.
· Workit, which provides online opioid addiction treatments that are both effective and accessible for patients.
