A semifinalist in Healthcare Innovation’s 2019 Innovator Awards Program, the Healthy Nevada Project is expanding enrollment to Las Vegas. The population health project aspires not only to offer genetic testing to every Nevadan interested in learning more about their health and genetic profile but eventually to expand nationwide.
The pilot phase of the Healthy Nevada Project launched in September 2016, enrolling 10,000 Nevadans in just 48 hours, and within 60 working days, each participant had donated a DNA sample for genotyping.
“Some people refer to this as the fastest clinical trial enrollment in the history of the country,” Anthony Slonim, M.D., president and CEO of nonprofit Renown Health, told Healthcare Innovation in an interview earlier this year. “We opened it up, not to their doctors who had a hundred other things going on, but directly to people and said all you have to do is show up, and they did.”
The project completed DNA sequencing of nearly 40,000 people in 2018, bringing its total enrollment to 50,000 people, approximately 10 percent of northern Nevada’s population and including a demographically representative set of Renown Health’s patient population. Researchers are using a SAS analytics-powered platform to analyze population health risks from patient variables such as gender, age, and personal or family health history.
The platform is being used to model public health risks ranging from disease and illness to the effects of environmental factors such as air quality. For example, they are working to understand how environmental factors can help predict who may be at risk, allow for quicker diagnoses, and encourage the development of more precise treatments. In October 2018, the project announced the return of clinical results for study participants, notifying them of their risk for CDC Tier 1 conditions including familial hypercholesterolemia, BRCA positive 1 and 2, and Lynch syndrome, a precursor to colon cancer. These conditions affect more than one percent of the population and are inherited, so they impact family members as well.
The project is now expanding to Las Vegas in a collaboration with University Medical Center of Southern Nevada (UMC), which serves as the host-site for Las Vegas. The project will offer no-cost genetic testing through a simple spit sample to 25,000 study volunteers. Study volunteers will take Helix's clinical-grade DNA saliva test and will receive their ancestry and traits, at no cost, through the My Healthy Nevada Traits app. Participants will then be given a chance to answer a follow-up health survey from Renown Institute for Health Innovation (Renown IHI), and upon survey completion, will be entered to win an iPhone.
In addition, study participants can agree to be notified about genetic test results that could impact their health, and which could be used to improve their medical care. This return of clinical results, plus genetic counseling and other genetic services as appropriate, will be provided by Genome Medical.
Slomin also has his sights set on national expansion. “Our researchers are working on a number of clinical programs and scientific studies to determine why in Washoe County, the county in which Renown Health is located, Nevada's age-adjusted death rates for heart disease, cancer and chronic lower respiratory disease are 33 percent higher than the national rate,” said Slomin in a statement. “Imagine if we can gather more data like this on a national scale and use it to change the future of health and health care? That is what the Healthy USA Project is looking to do in the years to come.”
