[07/27/2020], Lexington, KY: CHI Memorial Chattanooga innovates with Thynk Health’s state-of-the-art screening technology and a mobile screening bus to bring lung screening to rural areas with high rates of at-risk patients and low rates of screening. Lung cancer leads in cancer deaths among both men and women, making up almost 25 percent of all cancer deaths. Yet, the adoption of lung screening remains low at around 2-3 percent nationwide. Patients living in rural areas, like those served by CHI Memorial Chattanooga, experience additional challenges, including access to lung screening programs, and thus screening implementation is some of the lowest at 1.6 percent.

“Forward-thinking organizations have already started to view lung cancer screening as an important population health initiative. At Thynk Health, we embrace complex challenges such as behavior health data and geo-localization integration that provide opportunities to scale traditional and large mobile LDCT program efforts.” – Joey Bargo, Chief Clinical Informaticist at Thynk Health

Documented in a recent article, “Mobile Lung Screening: Should We All Get on the Bus?”, published in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, July 13, 2020, are the innovative efforts of CHI Memorial Chattanooga to make lung screening more accessible in rural communities. Beginning in 2018 over 10 months, CHI Memorial Chattanooga’s Mobile Lung Screening program traveled to 104 sites and screened 548 eligible patients, identifying lung nodules over 2 mm in 42 percent of screening patients, with 23 percent requiring further testing. Five lung cancers were identified, four of which were in early stages. Nonpulmonary significant findings were discovered in 28 percent of those screened. Revenue during the 10 months exceeded break-even analysis for the first year (even while accounting for screening patients only 10 of the 12 months) by 28 percent and exceeded the numbers of screenings needed by 120.

Thynk Health was honored to partner with CHI Memorial on this effort, utilizing their powerful lung cancer screening solution to mine patient data and identify at-risk patients eligible for screening. Integrating with CHI Memorial Chattanooga’s existing hospital systems, Thynk Health was able to extract critical data from patient health records and analyze these against patient demographics and medical history to flag those patients at a higher risk of lung cancer. 

In addition, all data collection, submission to the American College of Radiology, and program oversight were made possible through Thynk Health’s technology. With deep learning and hyper-automation, Thynk Health fully automates data entry without disrupting existing workflows and routines. Data is extracted from structured and unstructured data sources to create a complete patient profile. This data is then automatically formatted for ACR submission and submitted with one-click, reducing time spent manually inputting data by an average of 25 minutes per patient.

Monthly meetings with CHI Memorial Chattanooga and Thynk Health’s experienced management team, mobile lung screening data, pulmonary and incidental findings, quality metrics, and effectiveness of screening sites were reviewed together.

“When we first learned of Dr. Headrick’s mobile screening plan, we were confident our state-of-the-art technology would fit perfectly with their innovative model. With a shared goal of making lung cancer screening more accessible, scalable, and powerful we began working to build the best possible integration and tailoring our solution to further fit the needs of the mobile unit. With more than 100 years of healthcare management experience at Thynk Health, we were able to provide unique insights and guidance throughout the process to achieve the best possible results. While this was essential to assisting the CHI Memorial Chattanooga team, it is not unique to them. We are vested in the success of every partner and our customer success rates, customer service, and software accuracy are unmatched in the industry,” said CEO of Thynk Health, Jeff Timbrook.