Employer-focused cancer startup AccessHope announced it is adding Johns Hopkins Medicine's Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Care Center to its network of National Cancer Institute-designated organizational partners. 

AccessHope connects employers offering self-funded health plans and employees' treating physicians with cancer-focused expertise from NCI-Designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers nationwide to increase access to quality oncology-based care, research and patient outcomes.

The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of cancer treatment and research center City of Hope. Its existing National Cancer Institute partners include City of Hope, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Emory Healthcare, Northwestern Medicine and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. 

"AccessHope helps employers play a vital role in their employees’ cancer journey by making the latest cancer knowledge and insights available to local physicians in order to help improve quality of life and health outcomes, help people return to their work and lives and reduce expenses," AccessHope CEO Mark Stadler told MobiHealthNews in an email.

"This collaboration with Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center will not only deliver significant benefits to employers and people with cancer, but works to reduce cancer health disparities in underserved populations."

THE LARGER TREND

One company utilizing AccessHope's offerings for its employees is tech and retail giant Amazon. The company touts the offering as one of four health benefits employees can use on their first day. 

In November, AccessHope announced a partnership with California-based Carrum Health, a digital marketplace allowing employers to purchase bundled healthcare services. The collaboration provides self-insured employers and their employees access to AccessHope's cancer specialists network through Carrum's oncology offering. 

Another platform in the digital health oncology space is Jasper Health, which provides a hybrid digital but human-led cancer care platform for patients and providers that offers care navigation and guidance, data insights, remote patient monitoring capabilities, cancer care coaches and a patient support community.