The University of Missouri System of four universities and University of Missouri Health Care announced a partnership with Siemens Healthineers to establish the new Alliance for Precision Health.

WHY IT MATTERS
The 10-year initiative will focus on digital health solutions, precision care, and workforce development through access to diagnostic and therapeutic equipment and educational and training resources.

Valued at $133 million, the partnership agreement will also support the research, educational and clinical care goals of the state’s NextGen Precision Health Initiative.

As part of the collaboration, Siemens Healthineers will supply medical imaging equipment and supporting infrastructure in the NextGen Precision Health Institute, and the parties will jointly contribute to the establishment of the Alliance for Precision Health that could reach north of $40 million.

The physical building will provide researchers and faculty with innovation spaces, laboratories and classrooms, located at the University of Missouri’s flagship institution in Columbia.

THE LARGER TREND
Precision medicine, which includes applications across diagnostics, prevention, and screening, that takes into account individual variabilities in genes, environment, and lifestyle for every individual.

Particularly useful for oncology, precision medicine – also known as individualized or personal medicine – is designed to help match each patient with the treatment that can work best for them.

However, a report published in July 2018 indicated the public is largely unaware of precision medicine and the methodology behind it – two thirds of survey respondents said they had not heard of the terms personalized medicine or precision medicine – even though the results of educational outreach efforts have been overwhelmingly positive.

According to the survey of 1,001 Americans from the Personalized Medicine Coalitionand conducted by KRC research, more than eight in 10 survey respondents said they had an interest in learning more about the field.

Back in April, Siemens Healthineers and the European Society of Radiology, which represents more than 101,000 members worldwide, announced the launch of a collaborative arrangement to promote discussion about digitalization with the radiology community.

The partnership includes discussions about artificial intelligence, machine learning, neural networks and will include webinars and webcasts for information and discussion with radiologists.

The partnership started with a first course on AI, which was held in Barcelona earlier this month as part of the European Congress of Radiology, where it focused on the digital future of radiology.

ON THE RECORD
"This unique alliance leverages the engineering expertise of Siemens Healthineers along with our innovative systems and services in tandem with the research and education acumen of the UM System and the clinical expertise of MU Health Care to both transform the way that healthcare is delivered and train the clinical and engineering workforce of the future," David Pacitti, president and head of the Americas for Siemens Healthineers, said in a statement.

Nathan Eddy is a healthcare and technology freelancer based in Berlin.
Email the writer: nathaneddy@gmail.com
Twitter: @dropdeaded209