Precision Medicine

It's hard for me to believe, but I’ve been at Penn Medicine for 13 years. There has been a remarkable amount of change, growth, and learning that has occurred both within my organization and in myself during this time. Upon entering a new calendar decade, I thought I'd share a few reflections on past achievements, lessons learned – and thoughts to pave the way forward in setting new goals to keep trailblazing on the technology landscape. I find that it’s important as a leader to express gratitude. Doing so creates a high achieving mentality at work and builds connectedness, perhaps even solidarity, which can pay dividends and even transform the organization toward increased productivity. The Information Services achievements that I am most thankful for at my organization include these key items: First, I’m thankful that we successfully implemented our integrated electronic health record. This achievement significantly enabled the continuity of patient care and seamlessly unites our patients’ data in the ambulatory, inpatient and homecare settings. Second, I’m thankful for the high performing Information Services team that gives 100% each day - dedicated toward achieving our departmental mission aligned to support our enterprise goals. By building a strong team vision, culture, and establishing solidarity, we have achieved a 96% retention rate over the past seven years.   Next, I’m thankful for Penn Medicine’s leadership that participates in our information services governance, sets institutional priorities and provides our teams with the resources necessary to continue to be leaders in health care delivery.  I’m also thankful for our vendor partners whose employees develop some of the most functional and reliable technology and software solutions to assist our caregivers in their daily operations.  Lastly, I’m most thankful for all of my business partners in the healthcare IT industry that work collaboratively with me and members of the Information Services team to design, develop and implement solutions that meet the institution’s objective to deliver world class patient care, education and research.  Through these contributions and collaborations, my organization has changed in ways we never dreamed of at the beginning of this past decade. As we look forward to the next decade, I can only imagine the changes that will take place. I foresee significant advancements occurring in mobility, imaging, telemedicine, virtual reality, 5G/6G, artificial intelligence, data privacy and security, genomic sequencing and translational research. From my perspective, these are just a few of the factors that will shape the next decade: In the near term, Penn Medicine’s Information Services team is focusing our efforts on driving more value out of the technology assets in which we have made investments. Further optimizing our electronic health record to be more intuitive and useful for our clinicians; Expanding efforts to further engage our patients in the management of their care; Delivering timely analytics to decision makers across the enterprise to improve on-the-ground decisions and drive desired behaviors; Integrating our research and patient care efforts to deliver personalized patient care solutions; Ensuring that we engage our most valuable assets, our employees, with the most up-to-date technologies to enhance their career opportunities.  The next decade is sure to bring an accelerated rate of change to the healthcare industry. Like the metamorphosis that has taken place in other industries, healthcare technology will be the catalyst for provider organizations to succeed in the ever changing world of healthcare. Mike Restuccia is the chief information officer of Penn Medicine.

The five-year project will focus on enabling faster medical research innovations, protecting against global health crises and improving access to care, the company says.

Artificial intelligence will also continue to be a big focus, as it becomes more clear which startups are succeeding in their initial target sectors. VCs are also eyeing genomics analytics tools, as well as other more practical technologies.

“This is a big step forward in personalizing cancer treatment and ensuring better patient outcomes,” said Professor Lim Chwee Teck, Mechanobiology Institute, NUS Biomedical Engineering.

Masimo, the maker of monitoring technologies and connectivity tools for hospitals, announced this week that it will acquire the connected care assets of NantHealth for $47.25 million in cash. WHY IT MATTERS NantHealth’s Connected Care suite – with tools such as DCX device connectivity, VCX patient vitals software, HBox connectivity hub and Shuttle interface cable – enables medical device interoperability for hospitals and health systems. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2020, subject to customary closing conditions. Masimo officials say the deal will help it offer hospital customers improved continuum of care with its automation and noninvasive monitoring technologies. It notes that NantHealth's suite of connected care tech enables more streamlined collection and storage of medical device data, through a vendor-agnostic platform, into electronic health records and other clinical information systems. THE LARGER TREND For its part, NantHealth says the sale will enable the company to focus on innovating in areas such as precision medicine. "Our decision to sell the Connected Care business enables us to focus on accelerating growth for our NaviNet and Eviti SaaS solutions, our data and molecular analytics capabilities, and pursue other strategically aligned goals," said Patrick Soon-Shiong, NantHealth's chairman and CEO, in a statement. "We believe Masimo has the best connectivity solutions, and we are delighted to have found the right home for our Connected Care business and our committed team of employees. We are working with Masimo to ensure a smooth transition for our Connected Care customers." ON THE RECORD "One of the strategic priorities for Masimo is, through our Hospital Automation solutions, to reduce clinician cognitive overload and reduce errors of omission," added Joe Kiani, chairman and CEO of Masimo. "Through connectivity, predictive algorithms, and decision support, we hope to improve the continuum of great care. The connectivity assets we are acquiring are completely in line with our mission as they will help accelerate our internal growth initiatives in this area. Not only does Connected Care immediately increase our customer footprint but also provides us with products which complement our current portfolio." Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.

The findings suggest AI systems can be trained to detect and grade cancer in prostate needle biopsy samples with an accuracy rate equal to that of prostate pathology experts.

Three experts from different areas of the health IT field discuss how artificial intelligence is going to play a larger role in the year ahead.

A study published in Nature suggests its model was able to spot cancer in de-identified screening mammograms with fewer false positives and false negatives than experts.

The pharma company will work with MIT's School of Engineering to establish an education program focused on developing new machine learning approaches to drug development and more.

BioLabs@NYU Langone, billed as the largest of its kind in New York City, will house more than 35 early-stage biotechnology and life sciences companies and 160 scientists and staff.