– Thrive Earlier Detection has won the BlueCross BlueShield Data Innovation Challenge for its proposal to evaluate the health-economic impact of earlier multi-cancer detection.
– Thrive to analyze more than five years of Blue Cross and Blue Shield claims to detect cancer earlier and more cost-effectively
– As part of winning the BlueCross BlueShield Data Innovation Challenge, Thrive will have six months of access to analyze a select dataset from BHI’s database of more than 5 billion covered procedures performed annually.
The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) and Blue Health Intelligence® (BHI®) announced today that Thrive Earlier Detection (Thrive) has won the BlueCross BlueShield Data Innovation Challenge. Out of more than 130 submissions and five finalists, Thrive was chosen for its proposal to evaluate the health-economic impact of earlier multi-cancer detection and better identify and predict populations that will most likely benefit from this approach.
Thrive to Analyze Dataset from BHI’s Database of BCBS Members
Thrive will have six months to continue to analyze a select dataset from BHI’s database of more than 5 billion covered procedures performed annually, originating from more than 170 million Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) members. BCBSA and BHI collaborated with HIMSS and Healthbox, a HIMSS Innovation Company, to implement the BlueCross BlueShield Data Innovation Challenge.
As a company, Thrive’s mission is to save lives by making earlier detection of cancer a part of routine medical care, which has led to the development of CancerSEEK, a liquid biopsy test that’s designed to detect many cancers at an earlier stage. Thrive plans to leverage BHI’s dataset to gain further insights into the health and overall cost implications of earlier cancer detection.
“It is a tremendous honor to win this challenge, which represents a significant opportunity to confirm that earlier detection of cancer can reduce costs and more importantly, increase survival,” said David J. Daly, chief executive officer of Thrive Earlier Detection. The cancer care gap is enormous — with more than 1.7 million new cancer cases and 600,000 deaths due to cancer in 2019 alone, our team is passionate in our mission to reverse these tragically high numbers of cancer deaths. We look forward to this partnership and the ways that it will help us realize our goal of saving lives by making earlier detection of cancer a part of routine medical care.”
BlueCross BlueShield Data Innovation Challenge Background
In April of 2019, BCBSA and BHI invited visionary companies to enter the BlueCross BlueShield Data Innovation Challenge to develop solutions that increase access to care, enhance patient engagement and improve care delivery and outcomes. 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. The five finalists were: Livongo, Pager, Wildflower Health, Workit Health and Thrive.
“We’re excited to continue working with Thrive as they dive even further into BHI’s immense store of longitudinal and historical healthcare data” said Swati Abbott, CEO of BHI. “By providing a complete view into a population’s healthcare journey, our partnership offers the chance to bring greater innovation to cancer care for all Americans.”
