Levin Health
Levin Health

According to Levin Health, a sports science company focused on researching, developing and commercialising a range of medicinal cannabis products such as CBD oil Australia wide, as the stigma around medical cannabis dissolves, interest and acceptance are on the rise. Between Q1 and Q3 in 2021, the number of patients grew by 50%. 

Levin Health explains that many Australians have dealt with years of long waiting lists and high costs in some traditional medical services. Since the federal government made the prescription of cannabis-based products legal back in 2016, patients have had other options.

The desire for an alternative to the traditional medical system, coupled with a growing interest in clinical trials that test the efficacy of medicinal cannabis for a range of conditions, partly explains the movement towards the treatment. The majority of prescriptions for medical marijuanas Australia wide written last year were for patients with chronic pain, anxiety and sleep disorders, explains Levin Health.

In 2018, the TGA (Therapeutic Goods Administration) changed the system medical practitioners had to follow to apply for medicinal cannabis products. The Special Access Scheme Category B (SAS B) was utilised to minimise the need to apply for a single permit for each product. The new system meant permits could last anywhere between three months and two years, simplifying the entire process.

In a 3-month period in 2021, the number of Authorised Prescribers grew by 40%. Levin Health says this highlights a major uplift in clinicians that want to make medicinal cannabis a regular treatment option.

To date, there have been over 307,000 approved SAS-B applications.

Levin Health points out that as product availability increases, the price for consumers decreases. Every year sees more locally cultivated and manufactured products, which doubled between 2020 and 2021. With more than 200 different medicinal cannabis products available, patients can choose between oils, capsules, nasal sprays and oral sprays.

And despite the industry achieving massive growth overall (with sales expected to reach $423 million by the end of this year), individual patient spend has dropped. The average individual spend now sits at $278 a month for cannabis Melbourne and Australia wide, with the average price per mg of cannabinoid continuing to drop.

HealthJoy, a connected healthcare navigation platform, announced today its latest partnership with Consociate Health, to bring HealthJoy to current and prospective Consociate clients. This collaboration will offer industry-leading TPA services that not only enhance the member experience, but also ensure access to a network of support Consociate Health is known for. 

HealthJoy connects members with the tools, programs, and on-demand help that they need to navigate their healthcare journey. The app leverages insurance verification and precertification data to get ahead of costly decisions and steer members to high-value care. Clients will automatically have access to HealthJoy's virtual Musculoskeletal (MSK) solution through this partnership.

"We are thrilled to align with the Consociate Health team. HealthJoy has created an experience that enables members to understand their benefits, become better consumers of healthcare, reduce HR administrative burden, and connect members to the best care possible. Partnering with Consociate Health is allowing us to bring a newly enhanced, fully connected platform to more members. Through data and claims, we can now create a more personalized approach to healthcare by proactively engaging members at the time that matters most," said Dave Mallen, Executive Vice President, Strategic Partnerships at HealthJoy.

Through HealthJoy's platform, Consociate Health clients can also expect to see a reduction in benefits questions to HR and gain access to its in-app communication tool, Broadcaster. Whether it's scheduling appointments and contacting providers, or providing price transparency assistance for procedures, services, and prescription drugs, HealthJoy will be there to support members throughout their care journey — saving them time, money, and frustration.

Darren Reynolds, Consociate's President and CEO, said "This innovative integration delivers an improved and embedded navigation platform for employers seeking to increase member engagement. HealthJoy's powerful resource provides access to healthcare concierges, along with an award winning AI powered app, delivering results through simplifying access to healthcare at the time of need."

About Consociate Health

Since 1995, Consociate Health has partnered with employers, and their trusted advisors throughout the United States, to provide innovative employee benefits programs, plan administration services, and actionable plan analytics. Consociate cares passionately about their employees, clients, and plan members and prides itself in delivering exceptional and personal customer service. To learn more, visit consociatehealth.com.

About HealthJoy

HealthJoy's mobile application creates an intuitive, connected healthcare experience that takes the confusion and complexity out of healthcare by connecting its members with the right benefits at the right moment in their care journey. Its mobile platform and human concierge team bring benefits together to surface the best providers, virtual care, and savings. Ultimately, HealthJoy helps employees lead healthier, happier lives. To learn more about HealthJoy's proven approach to healthcare navigation, visit www.healthjoy.com.

Cornerstone Specialty Network, LLC
Cornerstone Specialty Network, LLC

Over 110 community oncology healthcare professionals, including 56 prescribers, representing 35 community oncology practices across the nation, registered to join Cornerstone Specialty Network, LLC for its 2nd annual European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2022 Data Review Symposium on Oct. 27, 2022. The program was chaired by Edith A. Perez, MD (Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL), Sujith R. Kalmadi, MD, (Ironwood Cancer & Research Centers, Phoenix, AZ), and Eric S. Schaefer, MD, (Highlands Oncology, Fayetteville AR).  

The Cornerstone Data Review Symposia are a unique and valuable series of programs offered to community oncology healthcare providers (HCPs); they summarize the latest clinical data that immediately impacts practice patterns in the community oncology setting. The live programs also create an interactive forum to ask questions and discuss the data's direct impact on patient care. "I have been a co-chair for Cornerstone's Data Review Meetings for the past three years. I continue to be impressed by the level of interest and engagement from attendees," says Edith A. Perez, Academic Chair.

"Consistent with our mission to provide value to independent community oncology practices, we offer several innovative and interactive forums bridging the gap between academic conference data, and how it is applied to community oncology practice. These programs continue to grow each year, reinforcing their value to community oncologists," stated Joel Schaedler, Cornerstone's CEO.

In addition to the ESMO Data Review Meeting, Cornerstone Specialty Network also hosts the following data review meetings: 

• American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)
• Nursing Care in the Community Oncology Practice  
• Lung Data Review Meeting
• American Society of Hematology ASH (American Society of Hematology)
• SABCS (San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium) 
• Cornerstone Oncology Fellowship Advancement Initiative (COFAI) - Specifically customized for oncologists who are new to the community setting with the goal of accelerating quality patient care.

To view any of the data review meetings, please visit https://www.cornerstoneoncology.com/events/ 
 

About Cornerstone

Cornerstone Specialty Network, LLC is the leading provider of long-term, sustainable value through an aggregated network of Community Oncology practices. Founded in 2016, Cornerstone Specialty Network's mission is to provide value to Community Oncology practices to help maximize the quality of patient care. Through network aggregation, Cornerstone Specialty Network delivers value-added opportunities that support independence and long-term sustainability for community oncology practices. For more information, please visit our website at cornerstoneoncology.com.

The Polaris Dawn astronaut crew

Traveling in space leads to bone loss, muscle loss, and an increased risk of kidney stone formation, often starting within the first 24 hours of spaceflight as calcium levels in bone and tissue decrease and are expelled in urine. A new research experiment, selected for inclusion in the upcoming Polaris Dawn spaceflight mission, aims to show if monitoring the first urine sample in the morning could provide a simple way to track astronaut health in space. If successful, the research will provide a pathway to use compact, new inflight monitoring techniques. The day's first urine sample typically has the highest urine calcium levels in the day and taking measurements from this sample might offer a workable way to assess in-flight bone loss and kidney stone risk. As both space accessibility and long-duration human spaceflights increase, keeping crews healthy by providing personalized, targeted countermeasures will be essential. This will require small, easy-to-use, low-power devices that can provide actionable information using easily obtainable samples of urine or saliva, such as a first-morning void.

Bisu is a startup that helps people improve their health and fitness through lab-grade testing at home. Working with former astronaut Jay Buckey, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Space Medicine Innovations Lab at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Bisu will support the post-flight analysis of first-morning void urine samples gathered from the Polaris Dawn crew to assess the effect of spaceflight on markers of bone loss, muscle loss, and kidney stone risk. If successful, this research could pave the way for inflight monitoring with new technologies, such as the microfluidic urine and saliva analyzer Bisu has developed. Because weightlessness affects people differently, this kind of in-flight monitoring could provide targeted countermeasures.

"People will be spending longer times in space, and they may not be able to do the extensive countermeasure programs currently used on the space station," says Prof. Jay Buckey. "We need simple ways to monitor people while they are in space so that the countermeasure program can be targeted to each person's individual needs. This research puts us on the path toward that."

"We're delighted to be working with Polaris Dawn and Prof. Buckey on this pioneering research," says Daniel Maggs, co-founder & CEO at Bisu. "This research reflects Bisu's commitment to advancing human health by making valuable health data accessible to all - whether on Earth or in space."

About Polaris Dawn

Polaris Dawn is the first of the Polaris Program's three human spaceflight missions. SpaceX is targeting no earlier than March 2023 for Falcon 9's launch of Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Polaris Dawn endeavors to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown, attempt the first-ever commercial spacewalk, conduct extensive research to further our understanding of human health on Earth and during future long-duration spaceflights, and test Starlink's laser-based communications in space. For more information, visit polarisprogram.com/dawn.

About Bisu

Bisu is a healthtech startup that provides personalized, preventative advice at home, through nutrition and hormone tests using microfluidic "lab-on-a-chip" technology. In late 2021, Bisu announced a $3.2m seed round and collaboration with ASICS, took home the Good Design Award in the wellness category, and won the US Sports & Fitness Industry Association's startup challenge.

Bisu's flagship product, Bisu Body Coach, is currently in beta and can be applied for at www.bisu.com.

About the Space Medicine Innovations Laboratory at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth

The Space Medicine Innovations Laboratory is devoted to solving biomedical problems presented by long-duration space flight. The lab has performed work on bone loss, decompression sickness, motion sickness, and psychological countermeasures for isolation and confinement. The lab also advances work that began with NASA into other areas of research. 

Please address all press inquiries to [email protected].

Thynk Health & Riverain

Thynk Health and Riverain, pioneers in the healthcare artificial intelligence space, have announced a partnership between their platforms to fight lung cancer with the world's most advanced technologies. Combining all the latest technologies, including CAD, Machine Learning, clinical NLP, recurrent neural networks, and artificial intelligence, this partnership offers an unprecedented opportunity for lung cancer screening and pulmonary nodule management.

Thynk Health is the complete cancer screening and incidental finding management solution. Utilizing state-of-the-art artificial intelligence and deep learning algorithms, Thynk Health seamlessly integrates with EHRs and health systems to mine structured and unstructured data, organizing it in powerful, simple dashboards. With advanced automation and analytics, healthcare systems are empowering their cancer screening programs with actionable intelligence to be more effective and efficient.

"Radiologists are experiencing AI as an adjunctive tool, rather than the job-stealing technology previously warned by futuristic writers," said Joey Bargo, Thynk Health Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer. "This is evident in the ability to have a second set of eyes when looking for small or hilar region pulmonary nodules. When utilized in combination with advanced deep learning for language abstraction from reporting, AI technology is even more effective, allowing for radiologists to use traditional workflows, rather than archaic and cumbersome second workstation solutions." 

Riverain Technologies is on a mission to revolutionize radiology by changing one in three delayed cardio-thoracic disease diagnoses to none in three. Using unique suppression technology, the ClearRead imaging interpretation solutions with Clear Visual Intelligence™ (CVI™) create an unobstructed view within the existing workflow so radiologists can focus on what matters to detect, precisely characterize, and report findings. Imaging interpretation with CVI™ moves radiologists beyond standard background-impaired imaging interpretation to allow focus on the actionable data to correctly and quickly detect cardio-thoracic diseases with newfound Certainty of Search™. 

"Radiology is the gateway to finding, assessing, and reporting the course of many diseases, especially lung cancer, including evaluating the response to treatment. Yet the exploding volume and complexity of imaging interpretation, especially in chest CT scans, is creating a crisis for both patients and radiologists that must be addressed—now," said Steve Worrell, Riverain CEO. "This partnership will bring cutting-edge solutions to improve nodule detection and increase efficiencies in nodule management." 

"The power of Thynk Health's AI-driven analytics abstracted from healthcare EHRs combined with Riverain's ClearRead suite significantly improves the ability to detect lung disease and changes the lives of patients, creating a comprehensive solution for lung cancer screening and pulmonary nodule management that offers healthcare systems a new level of patient care and growth and provides a new level of automation in the lung nodule diagnostic process," said Jeff Timbrook, Thynk Health CEO.

Lung Cancer continues to be the leading cause of cancer death among men and women, making up almost 25 percent of all cancer deaths (more than colon, breast, and prostate cancers combined). In 2022 the American Cancer Society estimates 236,740 new cases of lung cancer will be diagnosed, and 130,180 deaths from lung cancer will occur. Thynk Health and Riverain's partnership opens a new level of opportunity for healthcare systems to identify at-risk populations and diagnose and treat those populations when in early stages, significantly increasing survival rates. With advanced technology companies, healthcare systems, and communities partnering together, we can and we will win the fight against lung cancer.
 

About

The Thynk Health platform optimizes data-driven workflows and provides operational and clinical analytics for lung cancer screening programs and other quality initiatives. Thynk Health's Lung Module automatically identifies patients at risk for lung cancer, automates patient data and ACR submission, automates patient communications, automates tracking of incidental findings, engages providers, provides actionable LCS reports, and offers pulmonary nodule tracking. Thynk Health is EHR agnostic and integrates with existing hospital systems (EHR, DICOM, PACS, scheduling, and more). Learn more at thynkhealth.com

The Riverain ClearRead solution eliminates obstructions that often stand in the way of accurately and efficiently detecting disease in thoracic (lung) CT and XR images. Powered by machine learning and advanced modeling, our patented, FDA-cleared, and clinically proven software tools are deployed in the clinic or the cloud and are powered by the most advanced AI methods available to the medical imaging market. Learn more at riveraintech.com