Dan Nardi of Reimagine Care discusses how to help community practices scale CAR-T programs

Reimagine Care is using its own nurses and technology to help community oncology practices build programs for complex cancer therapies such as CAR-T and grow them without hiring nurses at the same pace, CEO Dan Nardi said.

Nardi discussed the approach with Managed Healthcare Executive after Reimagine Care announced its acquisition by Cureety, a precision oncology care company based in Europe. Together, the companies support more than 280 cancer centers and 80,000 patients across five countries.

Reimagine Care has hired nurses with clinic experience, including an advanced practice provider who leads its virtual care center and has spent years delivering these therapies in clinic, according to Nardi. During implementation, they work with a practice's nursing team to build processes and procedures.

Many community practices are only starting to build these programs, Nardi said.

“There's very few practices, community practices, that are out there that are really doing this at mass scale,” he said, noting that those who do often treat one or two patients at a time. He added the goal is to set programs up to grow.

Access is part of the case. Nardi cited a statistic that 8 in 10 patients eligible for CAR-T still do not receive it, which he tied largely to the therapy being delivered at larger centers in urban areas. Helping community practices stand up programs would bring the treatment closer to more patients, he said.

Nardi also addressed cost. In a traditional setting, moving from one to three patients at a time to five, 10 or 15 would mean hiring more nurses. Reimagine Care instead pairs connected remote patient monitoring devices with Remi, its AI triage agent, so practices do not have to keep adding staff. That lowers overall costs for both Reimagine Care and each practice, he said.

One risk is device supply. Reimagine Care does not make its own devices, so it relies on partners that can deliver at scale. Nardi said supply chain problems like those seen early in the COVID-19 pandemic could leave gaps in care delivery.

In this disucssion, Nardi walks through how the model works for community practices and what could get in the way as it grows.