Population Health

Case study: Helix and Healthy Nevada

Powering the world’s fastest growing population health program in Nevada

Researchers at the Healthy Nevada Project had originally started with microarray data, but soon realized that they needed CLIA/CAP exome data to meet their goals. Our high-throughput sequencing lab delivers clinical-grade exome data that met their rigorous health and research needs. We made recruitment easy, too: By offering informative, easy-to-use ancestry and traits apps to participants, Helix and the Healthy Nevada Project stimulated demand, enrolling 10,000 Nevadans in less than a week. In less than one year, Healthy Nevada has assembled one of the largest genomic and health data sets in the world.

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Contact us to learn how Helix can enable your population health initiative

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A higher standard of care

Helix enables health care providers and research institutions to deliver scalable, 
low-cost genomic medicine and services to all patients.

Immediate clinical impact

Identify at-risk patients

Population health initiatives help you save lives today. In a health system serving one million people, 30,000 to 40,000 are carrying an ACMG 59 variant—and many aren't aware. 67% of BRCA2 variant carriers have no family history of associated disease.

Support patients

We enable physicians, genetic counselors, and nurses to reach out to consenting participants to deliver positive results and design clinical action plans, including follow-up visits and confirmatory genetic testing.

A lifetime of benefit

Precision medicine on your terms

Add genomics to your workflow at a pace that's right for you. Our flexibility enables precision medicine wherever you need, from pharmacogenomics to carrier screening, rare disease, and risk stratification.

Provide ongoing health updates

With Helix, your patients have all 20,000 genes on file, available to be re-queried throughout their lifetime as your needs and clinical practice evolve. Unlock affordable, on-demand genetic insights across the continuum of care.

“With Helix, we get clinical-grade genomic data and a turnkey platform to enable clinical and research insights, giving us the flexibility to build the initiative that is right for our patients, providers, and researchers. They are fantastic partners in an ambitious population health study.”

Joseph Grzymski, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator, Healthy Nevada Project
Chief Scientific Officer, Renown Health

References

1. https://acmg.expoplanner.com/index.cfm?do=expomap.sess&event_id=13&session_id=10240
2. Marci L.B.Schwartz et. al. A Model for Genome-First Care: Returning Secondary Genomic Findings to Participants and Their Healthcare Providers in a Large Research Cohort.Am J Hum Genet. 2018 Sep. PMID 30100086

Screen. Research. Discover. Repeat.

Helix’s platform is helping health systems and research institutions accelerate the integration of genomics into clinical care and facilitating novel genetic discovery

Participant recruitment
& engagement

Sequencing &
bioinformatics

Initial return
of results

Sequence once,
query often

Ongoing research
& engagement

Offers your participant an engaging, customized experience

Increase engagement and retention

The Helix platform helps you differentiate your organization in a competitive healthcare marketplace with a human-centric approach to population health:

  • Our ancestry and traits insights tap into consumer curiosity, engaging participants and encouraging faster enrollment.
  • Raise your profile and drive more interest in your health system with cutting-edge genomics research
  • Leverage our flexible model to improve outcomes and raise the general health of the communities you serve.

Helix Exome+ assay

Helix's proprietary Exome+  assay is a panel-grade clinical exome enhanced by ~300,000 informative non-coding regions. Due to its custom design and proprietary bioinformatics solutions, it enables both clinical return of results and supports diverse research applications.

Clinicians and researchers are able to get the benefits of a targeted panel, the breadth of a microarray, and the completeness of an exome—all from one sample and one assay. The discovery and analysis of rare and novel variants, genome-wide imputation, polygenic risk score calculation, ancestry inference, replication and stratification of GWAS findings, and more are all delivered by the Exome+ assay.

  • Comprehensive and highly uniform coverage 
    (>99.5% call rate at ≥20x for clinically relevant regions)
  • Clinically-validated intragenic and multigenic CNVs (100% sensitivity for ≥2 exons)
  • Clinically-validated star allele calls for pharmacogenetic regions (accurate detection of > 100 CYP2D6 star alleles)
  • Array-equivalent genome-wide imputation of tens of millions of high-confidence SNPs for discovery and polygenic risk scores
  • Inclusion of the full mitochondrial genome

Projects powered by Helix

Helix has partnered with some of the best health institutions around the nation, collectively aiming to sequence and screen hundreds of thousands of participants.

Learn more about our partners

Introducing Helix Health

Helix Health is a clinical product that enables responsible and user-friendly return of CDC-Tier 1 results to consenting participants and their physicians.

Pre-results education

Easy-to-read content covering common questions about DNA sequencing, what the test covers, and what the participant can expect.

Results summary

An overview of results for each condition covered by Helix Health with links to condition-specific reports for more detail about next steps.

Detailed reports

Condition-specific reports detail the participant’s results while highlighting their lifetime disease risk, next steps, and supportive resources.

Personalized results

Each report provides potential disease risk and guidelines specific to the participant’s age and sex, enabling a more personalized learning experience.

Actionable next steps

Participants are guided to program specific resources, such as genetic counselors, and instructed on how to discuss their results with others.

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