Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Obama's Precision Medicine Initiative

go.wh.gov/SOTUMedium

Despite the fact that President Obama spent the last week spilling the beans on the content of his State of the Union address, he had one little surprising tidbit for those of us who are passionate about Health IT: a Precision Medicine Initiative!  In his own words:
"21st century businesses will rely on American science, technology, research and development. I want the country that eliminated polio and mapped the human genome to lead a new era of medicine — one that delivers the right treatment at the right time. In some patients with cystic fibrosis, this approach has reversed a disease once thought unstoppable. Tonight, I’m launching a new Precision Medicine Initiative to bring us closer to curing diseases like cancer and diabetes — and to give all of us access to the personalized information we need to keep ourselves and our families healthier."
All I can say is, "Amen to that!"

We're currently at a critical juncture of the need for personalized and precision medicine and the availability of technology to support exactly that.  Patients can - right now - share their own health information in real time with their physicians via novel technologies such as Apple's HealthKit, which we've implemented here at Duke.

Plus, technologies such as the SMART Platform (about which I'll have much more to say very soon ...) will enable a new generation of standardized medical apps that can scale to every EHR and every hospital in the country ... and eventually the world.

I couldn't be more excited to be surrounded by such talented and creative folks here at Duke working to make all of these things (and more!) a reality.  Apparently for the past year we've been working to make the President's vision a reality ... we just didn't know it!

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