In this episode

“Meeting patients where they are” is one of the core premises of digital health. But what does it look like for downstream health outcomes when this is done well? Exact Sciences is a pioneer in home cancer screening with their at-home Cologuard® tests, and continues innovating ways to make preventive care easier and more convenient for patients. In this episode, Exact Sciences’ CIO, Nassar Nizami, discusses:

• Exact Sciences’ mission to “prevent and eradicate cancer with personalized treatment.”
• The benefits of non-invasive, convenient testing to encourage patients to get screened, especially younger patients who might not account for cancer screenings but for whom rates of cancer are increasing.
• Ways to reduce barriers to cancer screening for patients.

“Convenience and early detection dramatically improve cancer treatment outcomes. The easier it is for patients to screen, the more likely they are to complete it.”

– Nassar Nizami

 

Key takeaways

 

Exact Sciences’ CIO Nassar Nizami provided an overview of the importance of convenient, simple ways for patients to get preventive care. He discussed trends in cancer rates and the importance of screening, covered strategies for addressing barriers that patients face to cancer screening, and offered a look at Exact Sciences’ work and mission.

“Over the last ten years, Exact Sciences has tested about sixteen million completed screenings, which is approximately one every twenty seconds,” he said.

Here are themes from the discussion:

Convenience isn’t just a nice-to-have — it removes barriers that prevent patients from getting care.

“Cologuard’s at-home screening option plays a crucial role in making colorectal cancer screening more accessible and convenient,” said Nizami. “By offering convenience, we help patients complete their screening in the privacy of their own home without needing to take time off or arrange transportation. These are some of the things that many of us don’t think about − taking a day off or transportation [to get a colonoscopy].”

“[At-home options] recognize that this is not an option for many, many people. So convenience matters a lot,” said Nizami.

Nizami emphasized the link between convenience, earlier screenings, earlier detection of cancer, and improved outcomes when cancer is detected and treated early. “Convenience and early detection dramatically improve cancer treatment outcomes,” he said. “The easier it is for patients to screen, the more likely they are to complete it, which ultimately helps prevent cancer − essentially through early detection.”

Improving access and patient communication matters, too.

Nizami also covered ways to remove barriers in patients’ access to and likelihood to complete home screenings:

• Access to the tests for patients who prefer to self-serve
• Reminders to patients to complete the tests
• Easy-to-understand results reporting
   
  

“There’s friction in the healthcare system at many different stages,” Nizami pointed out. Exact Sciences established Cologuard.com, with a virtual provider available who can assess orders, to make it easier for patients to access home cancer screening themselves.

Helping patients remember to complete the test once they’ve received it is also important, Nizami notes. “We find that continuous reminders encouraging patients to complete [testing] really increase screening rates dramatically,” Nizami said.

Finally, “We are taking great care to ensure that test results are timely and very simple to understand for patients,” he said.

Putting it all together: convenience and patient focus improve health outcomes.

Nizami discussed the success of a targeted outreach program to enroll patients in Cologuard® testing at Virtua Health, which identifies patients using care gap reporting in the EHR and sends guided outreach to patients using Luma. He also noted that co-branding outreach with both Cologuard® and health system branding “dramatically increases adherence.”

Within five months at Virtua Health, patients completed 3,500+ Cologuard tests, which led to early detection of nearly 300 positive results and the opportunity for earlier treatment. To hear more about Virtua’s results from Chief Digital Transformation Officer Tarun Kapoor, MD, MBA, check out this episode of Digital Health: On Air.

“Life sciences can exist somewhat separately from technology and healthcare providers…Exact Sciences is trying to bridge the gap there,” Nizami said. “There’s tremendous value in connecting, partnering, and working on different campaigns together.”