Irvine-based St. Joseph Hoag Health has rolled out its latest iteration of Wellness Corner inside an LA Fitness. The seven-hospital health system, which designed the facilities to provide medical care outside of the hospital setting—moving care to where people live and work—is now bringing the model to the community.
The 1,000-square-foot facility inside LA Fitness Irvine-Crossroads is at 3960 Barranca Parkway. It’s the first wellness center to focus exclusively on muscular, joint and spinal health. Offerings include acupuncture, chiropractic care, physical therapy, bodywork and other services.
“This has been in the works for a while. We have a facility at Western Digital that includes physical therapy and acupuncture, and we saw good outcomes for Western Digital employees, and we thought we could do the same thing for the community,” said St. Joseph Health Vice President of Wellness Annette Buckel.
She pointed out that the facility is different from previous wellness centers designed for specific employers, in that it’s open to both gym members and the general public.
“We are in this proof-of-concept stage. In the employer-based model, we have a lot more leverage to incentivize employees to come to us—we are on-site, you really can’t get more convenient than that. This time, we are relying on individuals and how we can better serve them,” Buckel said.
The facility accepts insurance and private pay. Services range from $20 to $120. Buckel said the goal is to serve 35 customers per day and maximize the LA Fitness facility to provide treatment on the gym floor and in the pool.
St. Joseph Hoag has six wellness centers, including the new location. It operates four direct-to-employer work site centers that provide care for single larger employers with over 500 employees. The Western Digital facility was designed to serve more than 1,800 employees, providing primary and preventative care, physical therapy, acupuncture, chiropractic and behavioral health services.
The health system will introduce another wellness center in October in Rancho Mission Viejo that will target the residential community and incorporate a more holistic health approach, such as using food as medicine.
Car-T Cell
Irvine-based Cryoport Inc., which transports biopharmaceutical materials that need to be kept at frozen temperatures, announced it signed an initial three-year agreement to provide cryogenic transportation support to Novartis International AG for its Car-T cell therapy CTL019.
Cryoport recently traded at $6.66 per share for a $157 million market cap—a three-year high.
Novartis’ T-cell therapy is designed to treat pediatric and young adult patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The drug is being submitted for Food and Drug Administration approval.
Senior Living
Scottsdale, Ariz.-based senior housing development and management company Cadence Senior Living bought Kirkwood Orange, an assisted living and memory care community in Orange, from HumanGood in Pleasanton. Terms were undisclosed.
Kirkwood Orange is Cadence’s first California community. It has two properties in Phoenix.
American Baptist Homes of the West and be.group merged in May 2016 to form HumanGood, the largest nonprofit senior living provider in California and one of the largest in the country. The combined company has more than 80 communities in California, Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and Washington.
Bits & Pieces
The University of California-Irvine appointed Dr. Michael Stamos dean of its medical school. He’d served as interim dean since February 2016, and during that time the school received the highest accreditation possible from the Association of American Medical Colleges and the American Medical Association Liaison Committee on medical education. Stamos joined UCI in 2002 and established the surgery department’s division of colon and rectal surgery. … Newport Beach-based IACTA Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s licensed technology, NM 133, received first prize in an emerging technologies competition of the Royal Society of Chemistry in the United Kingdom. The company’s lead drug candidate, developed by Nanomerics Ltd. in London, treats chronic dry eye. IACTA has an exclusive license for the drug in North America. … Santa Ana-based cell culture media developer and manufacturer Irvine Scientific announced the introduction of a new formulation Continuous Single Culture NX. The company said the medium lowers lactate concentrations—which can contribute to stress for the embryo in in vitro fertilization—resulting in more effective in vitro fertilization application.
