HCA Healthcare’s Sarah Cannon Cancer Institute Implements New Outpatient Model for CAR T-cell Therapy

HCA Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:HCA), one of the nation’s leading healthcare providers, today announced that the Sarah Cannon Cancer Institute (SCCI) of HCA Healthcare has successfully established an integrated management process that safely transitioned more than 75% of HCA Healthcare’s CAR T-cell therapy patients into an outpatient setting for monitoring. The program model resulted in more than 1,200 hospital bed days saved for the first 100 patients of the program compared to historical results, and approximately 20% of patients avoided hospitalization altogether.

Piloted at four Sarah Cannon Transplant and Cellular Therapy Network (SCTCTN) sites and using new technology for at-home patient monitoring, trained outpatient clinical teams, including nurses, clinical pharmacists, advanced practice professionals, social workers and case managers, have created a model to help reduce the time patients spend in the hospital after treatment during the typical two-week monitoring period.

“Patients heal better outside the hospital if they can get these complicated therapies, which carry risk for significant complications, safely in the outpatient setting,” said Dr. Navneet Majhail, physician-in-chief of blood cancers, Sarah Cannon Transplant & Cellular Therapy Network. “We have leveraged technology and developed clinical pathways to care for patients receiving CAR T-cell therapies. Our clinical teams have accomplished this by standardizing care across a network of several cell therapy programs. In addition to patient benefits, their work has helped us better anticipate and meet the increasing demand for cell therapies as we continue to innovate our care delivery models to enhance timely access for these important treatments.”

Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, also known as CAR T-cell therapy, is an immunotherapy designed to program a patient’s immune system to recognize and fight cancer. During the CAR T-cell treatment process, T-cells are drawn from a patient’s blood and genetically modified to recognize the patient’s cancer cells when reinfused. Because these oncology patients require intensive, specialized and time-sensitive care, they are closely monitored for any complications and have historically required inpatient hospitalization for up to two weeks post infusion.

In February 2023, SCTCTN, through a collaboration with Best Buy Health, launched the initiative to safely transition a substantial portion of CAR T-cell therapy monitoring into patients’ homes. Best Buy Health’s remote patient monitoring platform, Current Health, tailored for CAR T-cell therapy patients, collects continuous vital sign data and monitors symptoms through integrated wearable devices. A dedicated team triages, manages and escalates patients' needs to SCTCTN teams locally, including registered nurses, using the Current Health platform to provide 24/7 monitoring.

Colleagues from SCCI will be presenting three research abstracts on their experience with this initiative during this year’s Transplantation & Cellular Therapy Tandem Meetings of ASTCT and CIBMTR, February 21-24, in San Antonio, Texas. HCA Healthcare plans to expand this model of care to additional SCTCTN sites over the next year seeking to further improve patient and caregiver experiences nationwide.

HCA Healthcare is one of the nation’s largest health system research site networks with more than 43 million patient encounters annually. The SCTCTN is one of the nation’s largest providers of CAR T-cell therapies with more than 300 patients treated in 2023. Patients are treated across multiple cell therapy programs using standardized eligibility criteria, clinical pathways, and guidelines for supportive care and toxicity management.

About HCA Healthcare

Nashville-based HCA Healthcare is one of the nation’s leading providers of healthcare services comprising 186 hospitals and approximately 2,400 ambulatory sites of care, including surgery centers, freestanding ERs, urgent care centers, and physician clinics, in 20 states and the United Kingdom. With its founding in 1968, HCA Healthcare created a new model for hospital care in the United States, using combined resources to strengthen hospitals, deliver patient-focused care and improve the practice of medicine. HCA Healthcare has conducted a number of clinical studies, including one that demonstrated that full-term delivery is healthier than early elective delivery of babies and another that identified a clinical protocol that can reduce bloodstream infections in ICU patients by 44%. HCA Healthcare is a learning health system that uses its more than 43 million annual patient encounters to advance science, improve patient care and save lives.

About Sarah Cannon Cancer Institute

The Sarah Cannon Cancer Institute (SCCI) offers integrated cancer services with convenient access to leading therapies for those facing cancer in communities across the United States and the United Kingdom. SCCI partners with facilities to help ensure the delivery of high-quality offerings for our patients, referrers, and physicians is accessible and affordable. SSCI strives to be a world-class cancer center closer to home with its suburban and community-based providers. They provide high quality care through HCA Healthcare’s resources such as access to proprietary software to read pathology reports for early identification.

Sarah Cannon’s Transplant and Cellular Therapy Network is the largest provider of hematological cancer treatment in the United States and offers adult and pediatric patients convenient and community-based access to treatments for blood cancer and blood and immune-related disorders, including hematopoietic cell transplantation and cellular therapy.

All references to “Company,” “HCA” and “HCA Healthcare” as used throughout this document refer to HCA Healthcare, Inc. and its affiliates.

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