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TR: So IT has a major role to play in personalized medicine?
LH: Medicine is going to become an information science. The whole health-care system requires a level of IT that goes beyond mere digitization of medical records, which is what most people are talking about now. In 10 years or so, we may have billions of data points on each individual, and the real challenge will be to develop information technology that can reduce that to real hypotheses about that individual.
TR: Will there be consequences beyond medicine?
LH: I think the P4 medicine revolution has two enormous societal consequences. It will absolutely transform the business plans of every sector of health care. Which will adapt and which will become dinosaurs? That's an interesting question, but it will mean enormous opportunities for companies.
I also think it will lead to digitization of medicine, the ability to get relevant data on a patient from a single molecule, a single cell. I think this digitization in the long run will have exactly the same consequences it has had for the digitization of information technology. In time, the costs of health care will drop to the point where we can export it to the developing world. That concept, which was utterly inconceivable a few years ago, is an exciting one.
TR: What will be the challenges in implementing this vision of medicine?
LH: I think the biggest challenges will be societal acceptance of the revolution. We are putting together something we call the P4 Medical Institute. The idea is to bring in industrial partners as part of this consortium to help us transfer P4 medicine to the patient population at Ohio State University, which is both the payer and provider for its employees. We plan to announce further details of this project in two or three months.
Farzad Mostashari leads push to improve health-care IT with billions in stimulus funds.
A Seattle company is developing rapid tests for thousands of proteins.
"absolutely transform the business plans of every sector of health care"
I laugh when our government makes budgets for ten years out. Are they counting on this stuff to save their asses?
Dr. Chu, Secretary of Energy, has debated Ray Kurzweil about the Technology Singularity. So I know the administration is aware of this kind of super-advancing possibilites.
Perhaps they want to gain as much power as possible before the inevitable happens so they can take credit. Digitizing medical records will continue to happen with or without the gov. It's just good business.
Also, in the process of digitizing medical records, I hope we can develop simple (non-corrupt) laws to protect privacy without hampering the great promise of this technology.
Sorry to talk of politics in the face of such pure and wonderful science, but health care must be political to a degree these days.
Yes. I'm sure the current administration understands that if they are able to make this healthcare 'land grab', they'll be able to take credit for the changes that are already in progress. That happened when Clinton was the beneficiary of 'deregulation' that happened many years before in the Reagan years. So what could have been a reinforcement of the free markets ability to provide what the public desires will be seen by the general public as a 'great new program' that government came up with to solve our problems. Just what we need:( Another slam on the private sector that drives innovation, and our economy.
Outstanding and hints a new role for doctors
Currently, physicians are rebelling a lot against what they see as a dilution of their role in health care as physician assistance and nurse practitioners pick up roles which used to be filled by them. For health care cost to be reduced and the vision of personal care as outlined here to be realized, a new class of para professionals will likely be created who rely on technology rather than years of abusive education to diagnose and treat. Better, the incidence of treatment should decline significantly with better overall preventive care. I'm not holding my breath on that one though as preventive care is actually proven to be more expensive currently. New tech could, hopefully, change that.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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dancrissco
54 Comments
Desktop Personalized Health Care
Today we have desktop engineering as a given and are skirting desktop manufacturing. It is very encouraging to note that very soon we will have desk top health care. Then desk top surgery could not be far off.We will soon realize the holy grail of affordable health care of the universe. It is great to be alive and part of a great world with positive advances in science.
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Pellionisz
6 Comments
Re: Desktop Personalized Health Care
P4 is not just for desktops (e.g. Personal Genome Computer) - but, especially in Asia but also in the US it is on mobile, see Personal Genome Assistant YouTube
We better call P4 in longhand "Personalized Health Care" (rather than "Personalized Medicine"), since according to Dr. Hood, the challenge is to embrace Information Technology. "Medicine" is a monopoly that is mush slower to embrace Information Technology than e.g. the yuppie generation of techie students, eager to practice Predictive, Personalized, Participatory Prevention as the core of future health care.
pellionisz_at_junkdna.com
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