What You Should Know:
– Health Transformation Alliance (HTA), a cooperative of nearly 60 of America’s largest employers, has partnered with Cognoa, a pediatric behavioral health company, to offer the company’s Canvas Dx diagnostic device for autism to all HTA Member organizations and their employees.
– HTA will offer its member organizations – some of the most influential and significant brands in the U.S. – the opportunity to add Canvas Dx to their benefit design.
Expanding Horizons By Increasing Accessibility To Child Health Services
This partnership comes at an ideal time when the pandemic has exacerbated long-standing gaps in pediatric behavioral and developmental healthcare. As the first FDA authorized diagnostic device of any kind for autism, the goal of Canvas Dx is to alleviate wait times for specialists and streamline the arduous journey for families seeking answers by giving more healthcare providers the ability to diagnose or rule out autism in children ages 18 to 72 months who are at risk for developmental delay.
AI-powered Canvas Dx enables mobile, accurate, and efficient action on developmental concerns during early childhood within primary care, thereby accelerating time to diagnosis and initiation of appropriate care. With this cutting-edge medical benefit, employers can curb the costly impacts of the child healthcare crisis for families and the workplace, and their employees can benefit from timely care of their developing children.
“How we identify developmental and behavioral conditions in children has not improved in decades, even as we are seeing greater diagnostic and care shortages,” said Dr. Sharief Taraman, CEO of Cognoa. “This partnership marks a significant milestone for Cognoa as we now have a direct channel that encourages employers to act now to support their employees’ ability to care for their children, and for themselves. We are proud to partner with HTA and their Member organizations who are committed to transforming early childhood healthcare through innovative and accessible solutions that impact the lifetime trajectory of children and the whole family.”
Why It Matters
In the U.S., as many as 25% of children are at risk for a developmental delay, and autism is estimated to affect 1 in 44 children. Autism can be reliably diagnosed in children as young as 18 months, yet the average age of diagnosis has remained stagnant for decades at over 4 years of age. Non-white children, females, and those from rural areas or disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds are often diagnosed even later or missed altogether. Research shows that early interventions, particularly before the age of three, during a critical early neurodevelopmental period, can improve lifelong outcomes for children. All-cause medical costs are approximately double for children who experience a longer time to diagnosis compared with a shorter time to diagnosis.
