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Diving into Genomics at Datapalooza

May 03, 2017
2:15 pm

I had the privilege of moderating a panel at Datapalooza – the annual gathering of hundreds of leaders in health data innovation — that focused on innovations in genomic science, which are rapidly spurring discoveries in personalized medicine.  Clinicians face enormous challenges in keeping pace with evolving best practices in data management and implementing these technologies into routine care.  The panelists focused on how genomic sequencing could be utilized with today’s healthcare information technology infrastructure, and the most effective way to do so.

Keith Stewart, the Carlson and Nelson Endowed Director of the Center for Individualized Medicine at the Mayo Clinic, where he is also a professor of medicine at the Mayo College of Medicine, discussed the importance of understanding genomes.  He said that 24 percent of people who have their genes sequenced discover new medical findings.  Utilizing this information can lead to more precise treatment.  Personalized treatment means that patients have the capability of finding out which drugs will give them more or fewer side effects, and which will be more effective overall.  Different people react to drugs in different ways, and this advanced knowledge can significantly increase quality of life for those who would otherwise suffer from severe side effects.  Dr. Stewart questioned how genome sequencing results can be stored in a way that they can be easily referenced for treatment.  Mayo Clinic, he said, is working on a way to bring genomic sequencing directly to the consumer, without the need for a doctor as a middleman.

Emma Huang, associate scientific director for Janssen research and development, said that the entire health continuum — from prevention to interception to cure — can be pushed forward by genomics.  Models are being developed for integrating genomic data into predictive models in real time.  What the system is lacking is the deep data collection at a population level in order to predict with greater accuracy.  There are currently global initiatives linking human genetics and clinical phenotypes.  Ms. Huang specified that data needs depend on the stage of a patient’s health.  She declared that insights from genomic data need to be available and easily interpreted by patients to achieve results.

A major implementation barrier involves data transfer, flow, and interconnectivity.  Genomics data is rarely generated, analyzed, interpreted, and clinically implemented in the same system.  Mark Dunnenberger, PharmD, program director of pharmacogenomics at NorthShore University HealthSystem, said genomic data needs to be integrated into the system for true value and should be used alongside clinical data.  NorthShore opened the first pharmacogenomics clinic of its kind in 2015, and has recently expanded the offering with an at-home testing program, MedClueRX. Electronic health records were not built to handle the huge volume and complexity of genomic data, and the current method of saving patient information as pdf files does not provide discrete data and tends to get lost in the system.  Pharmacogenomics helps clinicians choose between therapeutically equivalent treatments that benefit unique individuals in varying ways.  Patients grasp the value of pharmacogenomics, Dr. Dunnenberger said, and are willing to invest money regardless of whether it is covered by insurance.

As our nation’s efforts to bring precision medicine the forefront of clinical care accelerate, we must take care to ensure we incorporate this data in ways that will be usable for clinicians and valuable for patients – without creating additional uncertainly or unsustainable costs.  As is often the case, HLC members are forging a path forward for others to follow.

Utilizing Technology to Propel Precision Medicine Forward

April 04, 2016
11:18 am

As we’ve seen, there has been a steadily increasing level of discussion and enthusiasm surrounding precision medicine.  The Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC) has remained engaged in this conversation, given the expertise and involvement of its members.  HLC hosted a briefing on Capitol Hill last April on the subject, in which Bio-Reference Laboratories, New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and Mayo Clinic detailed the benefits that have already been realized, and the potential that has yet to be reached.  They each shared stories of how targeted therapy transformed the lives of patients in ways that conventional medicine could not.  Although the cost of sequencing will continue to benefit and see increased usage from price declines, early genetic testing has allowed for immediate diagnosis and treatment, bypassing the costly trial and error approach.  Our member experts all agreed that one organization alone cannot succeed in integrating genome based knowledge into personalized care.

Last year the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) was announced by the National Institute of Health (NIH).  This year the White House hosted a PMI Summit, in which President Obama both participated and partnered with the NIH in an educational tweet chat that answered questions from the public regarding the initiative.  During this chat, NIH Director Francis Collins cited a paradox, “Only by studying populations at scale can you really understand individual differences.”  The PMI Cohort Program is currently working towards collecting one million or more participants that reflect the diversity of our country.

Precision medicine is an area that would directly benefit from the ability to collect, store and share data electronically.  In order to see real success, harmonization of data privacy laws is a necessary next step.  Diverse state privacy regulations regarding patient information accompany HIPAA laws, adding to the complexity of sharing data in a way that would improve the quality of patient care.  Federal rules for research subjects intersect with additional privacy policies that are also burdensome to the healthcare system.  The ability to utilize any data gathered from partnering facilities is an important function, and dialogue between the federal government and states is needed to ensure this is feasible across the country.  This is a field of health policy we have discussed fully in the Healthcare Leadership Council’s recently-released “VIable Options: Six Steps to Transform Healthcare Now” policy recommendations. The U.S. is on the cusp of a new era in healthcare, and the flow of health data is a crucial part of it.

What to Expect in 2016, From an Industry Leader

January 06, 2016
3:16 pm

In these early days of the new year, all eyes will be on the U.S. House as it prepares to pass legislation repealing the Affordable Care Act, which will go to President Obama’s desk for a certain veto.

There are far weightier developments likely to happen in 2016, however, and Susan DeVore, President and CEO of Premier, Inc. and chair of the Healthcare Leadership Council penned a recent article in Health Affairs that does an excellent job spelling out the trends we should be watching in the coming months.  Among the developments she cites:

  • With the coming implementation of new Medicare physician payment formulas and rules, physicians will be determining which payment model works best for their practices and understanding how to improve performance to meet new quality standards.
  • Value-based contracting between providers and healthcare manufacturers will become more prevalent, with compensation ties to a product’s ability to meet certain performance criteria.
  • Telemedicine will continue to prove itself as a cost-effective mechanism for managing patient care, spurring discussions on the service’s role in healthcare payment systems.
  • To drive more market competition in the pharmaceutical market, Ms. DeVore projects speedier FDA approvals of new drugs.  She notes that competition has already brought down prices of the much-talked-about Hepatitis C medications.
  • The likelihood of legislation requiring more usability and interoperability among electronic medical records systems.
  • Noting that health providers are faced with literally hundreds of different performance quality measures, she projects an effort to consolidate and simplify measurement systems among government and private payers.

The full Susan DeVore Health Affairs post can be found here.

The “Talk to Each Other” Challenge for Healthcare

June 30, 2015
10:36 am

There is an excellent read in the Wall Street Journal today from Susan DeVore, the President and CEO of the Premier, Inc. alliance of 3,000 community hospitals throughout the country.  (Ms. DeVore is also chairman of the Healthcare Leadership Council.)

In her WSJ piece, Ms. DeVore notes that, while other industries have made excellent use of evolving information technologies to improve customer service and strengthen cost-efficiency, healthcare has lagged behind.  Improved data sharing is essential, she writes, “to ensure the right information about the right patient is available at the right time.”  She is absolutely correct in her assertion that making this happen is a responsibility shared by the private sector and public officials.

The DeVore column is below:

SUSAN DEVORE: Imagine what Twitter would be like if you were only able to have and Tweet to one follower? Or if email only worked within the four walls of your organization? Technology has made information sharing seamless and almost limitless for most people and industries. But it hasn’t reached its full potential in health care.

In health care, technology is foundational to drive change and improve the quality and value of patient care. The problem is that important health-care data cannot flow freely among the various health-information-technology systems that hospitals and health systems use. This hinders the ability for providers to connect and easily exchange information across their organizations and with other health systems.

As health systems focus on accountable care and increasingly move toward alternative payment models, the need for interoperable data across all health-information technology systems becomes critical. The ability to seamlessly pull discrete data anytime, anywhere helps to ensure the right information about the right patient is available at the right time. But today, providers are challenged with having to double check data pulled from disparate devices to make sure the information matches, such as dosing and blood sugar levels. Not only is this a step back for efficiency, but it is another manual process that has the potential to create errors and patient-safety issues.

To truly leverage health-information technology’s full potential, diverse networks and systems in health care must be able to talk to each other. To do so, we should require the use of innovative technology solutions such as open application programming interfaces (APIs) and secure third-party applications that connect the data to enable the real-time exchange of information.

Designing and implementing health-information technology that promotes collaboration among all stakeholders would create a learning health system that focuses on improving health-care quality, efficiency, safety, affordability and access. Private-public partnerships on interoperability governance, standards, measures and system transparency are essential to make this work.

A few weeks ago I was watching as my grandchildren were playing with their parents’ smartphones. At their ages, they are only interested in the bells and whistles, but in their little hands were devices probably considered impossible 10 or 15 years ago. Through innovation, ingenuity and necessity, my hope is that the challenge of interoperability becomes an obsolete concern.

A Wise Withdrawal on Altering Medicare Part D

May 21, 2015
11:50 am

This morning, the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted unanimously – a rare event in these fractious political times – to send its 21st Century Cures legislation to the full House.  Progress for this measure, which will accelerate the development and delivery of new treatments and therapies while also making advances in healthcare data access and interoperability, is good news for patients and the healthcare system.

An interesting and positive development in the Energy and Commerce markup actually concerns something that didn’t happen.

One of the amendments scheduled for consideration this morning would have fundamentally changed the Medicare Part D prescription drug program by empowering the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate drug prices, a responsibility now being handled by private sector health plans and pharmacy benefit management firms.

This is a status quo that isn’t begging to be repaired.  Just the opposite, in fact.  These private sector pricing negotiations have yielded a Part D program that has maintained beneficiary monthly premiums at a stable, affordable level for the past five years.  All the rhetoric in the world doesn’t change the fundamental truth that millions of seniors and beneficiaries with disabilities have affordable access to medication because of the way the Part D program is structured.

The drug pricing amendment was withdrawn before coming to a vote.  Medicare Part D stays on a path that has consistently won approval ratings of greater than 80 percent among Americans 65 and older.

Some efforts withdraw, as the saying goes, so they can live to fight another day.

Ill-conceived ideas like this one, though, should just call it a day and stay permanently out of the way of Medicare beneficiaries and the medicines they need.