Johns Hopkins applies physics and engineering to precision medicine
Johns Hopkins Medicine and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory have joined forces to bring data analysis and systems engineering to precision medicine in an effort to strengthen the ability of the organizations to better contribute to healthcare delivery, Johns Hopkins announced today.
The partnership furthers the existing goals of Johns Hopkins to create a learning health system that will efficiently translate data into applicable insights.
Along with the new partnership, Johns Hopkins plans to launch eight precision medicine centers this year that will highlight areas where new technologies and measurement tools can be applied to improve patient care. The centers will focus on heart failure, genetics, prostate cancer, among other conditions.
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The centers will aggregate collective scientific data, which will allow providers to improve treatments and patient outcomes, according to officials. Additionally, the Johns Hopkins inHealth program will collect more patient information, including family history, genetic hallmarks and other data.
"We want to leverage APL's expertise to develop solutions across all care environments in a way that advances health and healthcare solutions for civilian, military and veteran populations worldwide," Sezin Palmer, executive for research and exploratory development at APL said in a statement.
"Our vision,” she added, “is to revolutionize health through science and engineering. It conveys the scale at which we aim to make an impact in this area. We’re not simply working to improve the state of health and health care in our nation, but to fundamentally disrupt and truly revolutionize it."
The partnership will build on the Johns Hopkins Individualized Health Initiative launched in 2013, which uses analytics for the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of health conditions.
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Further, the platform will also interact with the Johns Hopkins Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare, a collaborative research program designed to improve healthcare efficiency, effectiveness and consistency.
"The medicine of tomorrow will require a deeper partnership with our patients who are willing to help move the research forward in all diseases,” said Antony Rosen, vice dean for research at JHU’s School of Medicine. "With the use of new measurement tools and data analytics, patients can be divided into very distinct subgroups that are so different in trajectory, it's almost as if each subgroup represents a different disease.”
Twitter: @JessieFDavis
Email the writer: jessica.davis@himssmedia.com
The HIMSS and Healthcare IT News Big Data & Analytics Forum takes place in Boston, Oct. 24-25. What to expect:
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⇒ Tips for reading Big Data results correctly
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⇒ MIT professor's quick primer on two types of machine learning for healthcare
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