Inside Ochsner Health System’s partnership with Color to offer certain patients gene testing

As more people dig into their family roots, seemingly, many are equally inclined to satiate their curiosity about their hereditary risks for conditions such as cancers, heart disease and diabetes.

This consumer interest in one’s healthcare is aligning with health systems’ desire to lower costs through better population health management. New Orleans based Ochsner Health System announced last week that it is launching a digital population health screening program where people can learn about their family history of disease by identifying increased risk for diseases like those. Ochsner has selected Burlingame, California-based Color to perform the gene testing and analyze results.

The program, formulated by Ochsner’s innovation lab, innovationOchsner (iO) will identify patients particularly vulnerable to hereditary cancers and heart disease and recommend them for testing in this pilot program. Specifically, the program will test:

• Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer Syndrome, a byproduct of mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes
• Lynch Syndrome, linked to heightened risk in colorectal, endometrial, ovarian and other cancers
• Familial Hypercholesterolemia, which fuels heart disease or stroke risk

A testing kit will be sent to the homes of selected patients, who will, in turn, send a DNA sample. Once the results are in, Color’s services and tools allow for a deep dive into health discussions and help ease family sharing, explained Richard Milani, chief clinical transformation officer, Ochsner Health System and Medical Director, iO, in a phone interview.

Ochsner clinical teams can talk further about care plans with patients and help them deal with the proceeding steps within the healthcare system, Milani continued. The results will be integrated into Ochsner’s EHR system.

“This isn’t so much a research study as it is actionable; something that can go into the clinical record appropriately, securely and safely, so that our primary care physicians and specialists are involved and we can take appropriate actions for patients at high risk for (those conditions),” he noted.

Almost two million individuals in the U.S. are at heightened risk for less than ideal health outcomes traced to the fact that they have genetic mutations with one of the three conditions. Milani noted that, potentially, with a higher degree of surveillance or earlier intervention, these health issues could have been circumvented.

Ochsner is not the only health system interested in genomics. Geisinger, the health system in Pennsylvania, announced in 2018 a wide-scale DNA-sequencing program free for patients.

There are several gene testing players in the market including 23andMe and Helix. Milani noted that Ochsner selected Color because the company met all the lab criteria, including certification by Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA). What’s more, Milani remarked, unlike some of its competitors, Color conducts secondary confirmation of abnormal results and offers genetic counselors who review results with and spend time with patients.

“They were very thorough in their methodology and confirmation, very robust in genetic counseling,” he noted.

Color uses clinical-grade genetic testing technology while also providing support to individuals and providers with genetic counseling services, which direct to consumer genetic testing doesn’t, said Caroline Savello, Color’s vice president of Commercial and lead on the partnership, in a phone interview

Color, for its part, wants to make genetic testing as easy as possible for patients to access.

“(The way it’s been, a patient) has to come in, see multiple people, get a referral for genomics clinic, wait four to six weeks tor appointment,”   said Caroline Savello, Color’s vice president of Commercial and lead on the partnership, in a phone interview. “Today, however, samples can be collected at home, and people can educate themselves on what they’ll be able to learn from a test, pose questions to trained specialists by phone and learn those results in a way that really reduces the exceptionalism of the technology of genomics.”

Earlier this year, the National Institutes of Health awarded Color a $4.6 million grant to serve as the nationwide genetic counseling service for their All of Us Research Program.

She added that once genetic testing becomes more accessible, “you see much higher compliance rates, greater engagement and much higher completion rates of even simple things like health history.”

There is some work that providers need to do to make genetic information understood and actionable.

“I don’t think that, in general, health industries are well prepared to consume this information and manage it appropriately. We need to be able to educate our workforce to house data appropriately and use it to change for health maintenance.”

Photo: iLexx, Getty Images