Pacific Edge today announces Kaiser Permanente, the largest integrated health provider in the US, has given the greenlight to incorporate Cxbladder tests within its Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system.

The project, which is expected to take several months to complete, will mean clinicians across the Kaiser Permanente Group will be able to order Cxbladder tests and view results directly within their clinical workflow rather than relying on a manual ordering system. Additionally, patients will be able to provide urine samples for Cxbladder tests at Kaiser Clinics and laboratories in addition to the current protocol of relying on the Cxbladder Patient in Home Sampling System (PIHSS) initiated during COVID.

Pacific Edge Chief Executive Dr Peter Meintjes said: “Kaiser’s decision to include Cxbladder tests in its EMR system represents an important commercial milestone for the group, offering a pathway to significantly ease the administrative burden of ordering and recording the results of Cxbladder tests.

“As we noted when we announced our results for the year to 31 March 2022 last week, we have been seeing steady growth in the volume of tests ordered by Kaiser clinicians with our clinic-by-clinic, clinician-by-clinician rollout of Cxbladder. When the EMR integration is completed we expect to see an increased rate of adoption of Cxbladder across Kaiser’s network of hospitals. Until the completion of the EMR integration, we will continue to grow adoption on a structured clinic-by-clinic, clinician-by clinician basis, initially with a focus on Southern California where Cxbladder was evaluated.”

Kaiser Permanente is one of the largest non-profit healthcare providers in the US, operating 39 hospitals, 734 offices and covering more than 12.6 million members, of which 85% are in California. The organization is reported to manage around 2% of the urology patients in the US.

Pacific Edge has an agreement with the Kaiser Health Plan – the payor arm of Kaiser Permanente – to pay for Cxbladder Triage and Cxbladder Monitor tests. The tests can assist clinicians to safely de-intensify hematuria evaluation from low incidence populations and to reduce the frequency of surveillance cystoscopy for recurrence of disease to improve patient compliance.