The value-based cancer care enabler Thyme Care has appointed a scientific advisory board with palliative care expertise to ensure that care and services are aligned with the most up-to-date literature and research.
The four-person board includes experts in palliative care, geriatric oncology, health policy, care delivery, predictive analytics and health care innovation from health systems, cancer centers, and research institutions. The panel will collaborate with Thyme Care’s executive, clinical and operations teams to fine-tune the organization’s care model and support development of new technologies.
The board will also evaluate patient outcomes against evidence-based interventions, as well as contribute to research studies.
“We’re really focused on making sure that we’re using a strong, scientific evidence base to inform everything we do in our care model,” Dr. Julia Frydman, palliative care medical director at Thyme Care, told Palliative Care News. “So we want to prioritize proven strategies from both community and academic centers that are leaders in oncology. The physician leaders, physician academics on our scientific advisory board are really exemplary of our commitment to taking what is proven in the science and putting it into practice at scale.”
Among the new board’s priorities will be to help bring effective and scalable palliative care to community oncology settings with Thyme Care’s new Enhanced Supportive Care program, which the company launched in May. This program is designed to expand patients’ access to psychosocial support, symptom management and serious illness conversations through a virtual care model deployed in collaboration with oncologists.
Thyme Care was established toward the end of 2020 following a $16 million funding round, led by Town Hall Ventures and Foresite Capital. To date, the company has raised $178 million in investment dollars, following several funding rounds over the past four years. The company offers palliative care in addition to other services.
Through contracts with risk-bearing entities, Thyme Care cares for roughly 11,000 patients and families navigating cancer and serious illness.
“Many of the folks on the [scientific] board have palliative care experience and palliative care research. We really think that palliative care is a core part of taking care of people living with cancer and their caregivers,” Frydman said. “We want to ensure that Thyme Care members get access to palliative care as early as possible in their disease trajectories, and the folks on the board will help us achieve that goal.”
The inaugural roster for the scientific board includes:
- Dr. Jennifer Temel, who has conducted research on the role of early palliative care in advanced cancer that has informed oncology guidelines recommendations. She recently published a study on a multi-site randomized trial of stepped palliative care (PC) for patients with advanced lung cancer. She is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, clinical director of thoracic oncology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, co-director of the Cancer Outcomes Research and Education Program at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and co-leader of the Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center Outcomes Research Program.
- Dr. Ravi Parikh, a physician and expert in health care artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. He recently led a study that found that behavioral economics-informed implementation strategies can help inform serious illness conversations between cancer patients and their oncologists. He serves as medical director of the Winship Data and Technology Applications Shared Resource at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. He is also a medical oncologist specializing in the treatment of genitourinary cancers at Winship Cancer Institute at Emory Midtown, as well as an associate professor at the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine.
- Dr. Ramy Sedhom, a physician and researcher who specializes in improving patient-centered care for vulnerable populations with a specific focus on geriatric oncology. He studies palliative care integration, geriatric assessment, psycho-oncology, caregiver distress and remote patient monitoring. In addition, he is an associate director and innovation faculty member at the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation (PC3I), as well as the director for the Program in Geriatric Oncology & Supportive Care Innovation at PC3I. He is also assistant professor of clinical medicine in the Division of Hematology & Oncology at the University of Pennsylvania, and director of medical oncology and palliative care at Penn Medicine’s Princeton Medical Center.
- Dr. Thomas LeBlanc, a physician and patient experience researcher who has investigated issues like symptom burden, quality of life, psychological distress, prognostic understanding and treatment decision-making. He is medical oncologist and palliative care physician at Duke Health, and serves as chief patient experience and safety officer for the Duke Cancer Institute, as well as the director of outcomes research in Duke’s Division of Hematologic Malignancies and Cellular Therapy.
“These are all leaders in the field of oncology, and from that perspective, they are strategic assets for Thyme Care. We are really trying to tie their expertise to Thyme Care’s mission, and we want to ensure that with them, we continue to grow and scale our programs, which, in turn, will drive our business,” Frydman said. “We really fundamentally believe that if we stay close to evidence-based interventions and remain focused on patients, that is our best business case. That is what we are hoping for with the scientific advisory board. The members are going to work directly with executive and clinical operations teams to help apply what they know into the work that we’re doing.”
