By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    physical health
    5 Ways Playing Games Can Improve Neural and Physical Health
    September 9, 2022
    Reasons For Hair Loss and Its Treatment
    Reasons For Hair Loss and Its Treatment
    February 16, 2022
    healthcare organization
    5 Actionable Strategies For Healthcare Organizations
    August 15, 2022
    Latest News
    Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
    May 16, 2025
    Learn how to Renew your Medical Card in West Virginia
    May 16, 2025
    Choosing the Right Supplement Manufacturer for Your Brand
    May 1, 2025
    Engineering Temporary Hospitals for Extreme Weather
    April 24, 2025
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    email marketing in healthcare
    Harnessing the Power of Email Marketing in Healthcare
    October 26, 2023
    healthcare claims
    The Role of Communication in Resolving Complex Workers’ Compensation Claims in Healthcare Settings
    September 22, 2024
    Wounds and Wisdom: What Motorcycle Accidents Teach Us About Health and Healing
    Wounds and Wisdom: What Motorcycle Accidents Teach Us About Health and Healing
    February 12, 2025
    Latest News
    Building Smarter Care Teams: Aligning Roles, Structure, and Clinical Expertise
    May 18, 2025
    The Critical Role of Healthcare in Personal Injury Recovery: A Comprehensive Guide for Victims
    May 14, 2025
    The Backbone of Successful Trials: Clinical Data Management
    April 28, 2025
    Advancing Your Healthcare Career through Education and Specialization
    April 16, 2025
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Personalized Prevention, Part I
Share
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > Policy & Law > Global Healthcare > Personalized Prevention, Part I
BusinessGlobal HealthcareNewsPublic Health

Personalized Prevention, Part I

JosephKvedar
Last updated: February 23, 2012 10:29 am
JosephKvedar
Share
8 Min Read
SHARE

For a few years now, I’ve been thinking about the potential intersections of genetics/genomics/proteomics and connected health.  In fact, my colleague Kamal Jethwani and my daughter Julie coauthored a piece for the journal Personalized Medicine on the topic in 2010.  A summary and the reference is linked.  (I should also note that the figure I reproduced bel

For a few years now, I’ve been thinking about the potential intersections of genetics/genomics/proteomics and connected health.  In fact, my colleague Kamal Jethwani and my daughter Julie coauthored a piece for the journal Personalized Medicine on the topic in 2010.  A summary and the reference is linked.  (I should also note that the figure I reproduced below is from that article with permission fromr the publisher.)

To learn more, I initially checked in with some local geneticists but their focus was on identifying genetic mutations in various cancers in order to predict therapeutic response.  This fascinating area was recently discussed in the NEJM in a piece called Preparing for Precision Medicine.  However, that is not exactly what I’ve been dreaming about.  I was thinking more about the potential to identify folks with propensity towards chronic illnesses like obesity, diabetes and hypertension using genetic techniques. Then, getting these individuals on connected health programs in an effort to change the course of their personal health history, before they wound up with these often avoidable, costly conditions.

A couple of months ago I had an email and subsequent visit by George Church, the world-famous geneticist and founder of the Personal Genome Project.  This conversation was pivotal for me as George is interested in collaborating with researchers who can track and map phenotype in such a way that we can match to genotype.  Our team is meeting with him again this week and I’m looking forward to an exciting collaboration to emerge.

More Read

On My Mind
Gamification–You Have Won and Now We Know All About You
6 Trends Transforming the Pharmaceutical Industry
Let Strategy Drive Healthcare Marketing Decisions (Part 3)
Supremes to Hear Case on Affordable Care Act

The intersection of connected health and genetics is interesting and complex terrain, and I am going to break up the discussion into several posts.  Today I just want to introduce the concept of Personalized Prevention and get your reaction to it.  Subsequently, there will be posts on some of the lifestyle diseases that have a genetic component and how we might use connected health to address those conditions.  As a start, I want to make sure we are all on the same page as to the meaning of a couple of terms.

A person’s genotype is the manifestation of the DNA in their cells, i.e. genetic information.  An individual’s phenotype is the expression of those genes in terms of proteins, cell behavior and ultimately human traits and behaviors.  Some time ago, the visionaries in the world of genetics coined the term personalized medicine to refer to the idea that if we know your genotype, we can be precisely predictive of your risk of getting certain diseases, as well as your response to certain therapeutics.

The $1000 genome is nearing reality.  As a society, we’ve not yet begun to appreciate what this means.  There are all sorts of implications but the most mind-bending is the idea that we will eventually be able to create diagnoses that are unique to you and therapeutic responses that are equally unique.

Consider that we are constantly bombarded with messaging about health care that goes like this: “40% of patients had a positive response as compared to placebo.”  This sounds like a triumph at the population level, but what if you are one of the 60% that would not respond and we could predict that?  One of my professors was prescient on this matter back in the ‘70s and said, “Patients don’t really care what their percent likelihood of an outcome is.  For them, the outcome is 100% success or failure and they’d like to be able to predict it on that  binary level.”  Until very recently we’ve only been able to offer patients a sense of risk, but the time is coming where we will be able to be much more confident in our choices for them.

Connected health does this too.  It is the ‘phenotypic map’ that corresponds to the detailed ‘genotypic map’ the geneticists come up with.  Consider if we have a population of workers and we want to incent them to be more active.  Connected health can provide, at a minimum, a very precise measurement of the outcome.  It enables folks who are investing in the program to see — both at a population and individual level — whether the program is resulting in increased activity.

Healthrageous has had success with this in the employer/health plan market.  They are giving customers precise data on how their populations respond to various incentives and programs to increase activity and lower blood pressure. The company will be moving next into diabetes.  Healthrageous can measure a program’s success quite precisely, reporting % engagement, % that stick with the program through the end and % achieving clinically significant results.  In all cases, they are creating new industry norms, but equally exciting is the precision of their reporting.

The illustration below lays out the concept of Personalized Prevention graphically.  Individuals who are at risk to develop a chronic illness can be identified, then offered connected health programs as a tool to prevent progression.  Likewise, individuals who are not responding to connected health programs can be identified as candidates for genetic testing to uncover the reasons why not.

I think the best example of how this might work is for people who are overweight or obese.  There is now good evidence that people who gain weight reset their satiety thermostat, i.e., when they lose weight even to a previously low weight, their body sends their brain a signal that they are chronically hungry, as if trying to get them back to their overweight state.  Tara Parker-Pope covered this wonderfully in a recent NY Times Magazine article called The Fat Trap.

I’ll write more on this next time, but to me it makes great sense to try to identify folks at risk for weight gain and educate them about activity using smart pedometers.  The feedback loops that connected health provides allow for an intense education into how one can easily increase activity.  It seems that, knowing there is a risk of weight gain, and knowing that this extra weight would be incredibly hard to take it off, an individual might be motivated to sign up for an activity monitoring program. Finding the right motivational triggers is, in part, how we create Personalized Prevention.

So what do you think? Does the concept of Personalized Prevention make sense?

 

TAGGED:chronic diseaseConnectivitygenomicspersonalized medicine
Share This Article
Facebook Copy Link Print
Share

Stay Connected

1.5kFollowersLike
4.5kFollowersFollow
2.8kFollowersPin
136kSubscribersSubscribe

Latest News

Clinical Expertise
Building Smarter Care Teams: Aligning Roles, Structure, and Clinical Expertise
Health care
May 18, 2025
Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
Health
May 15, 2025
Learn how to Renew your Medical Card in West Virginia
Learn how to Renew your Medical Card in West Virginia
Health
May 15, 2025
Dr. Klaus Rentrop Shares Acute Myocardial Infarction heart treatment
Dr. Klaus Rentrop Shares Acute Myocardial Infarction
Cardiology
May 13, 2025

You Might also Like

NewsPublic Health

Press Coverage of Health Data: Just Like Pharma’s DTC?

May 5, 2012
physician health
BusinessHospital AdministrationMedical EthicsPolicy & Law

Have Physicians Lost Their MoJo?

April 25, 2013

DOCTOR Project Launches Consumer-Friendly Reports on Physicians [TRANSCRIPT]

May 22, 2014

3 Powerful Words That Change Minds

January 26, 2015
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!
Follow US
© 2008-2025 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?