Population Health v. Precision Medicine: Stanford Professor Euan Ashley Weighs In


by Gregg A. Masters, MPH

I was recently invited by SAP corporate affairs social media leadership to participate in and report on the SAP Personalized Medicine Symposium hosted at the SAP Innovation Center in Palo Alto, California.

Two Stanford faculty members, Carlos Bustamante, PhD, Professor of Genetics, Inaugural Chair of the Biomedical Science Department, Stanford University School of Medicine and Euan Ashley, MBBS, DPhil, Associate Professor of Medicine and Genetics, and by courtesy, Pathology & Director, Stanford Clinical Genomics Service, were part of an impressive line-up of speakers including:

  • Magnus Peterson, MD & PhD – Specialist in General Medicine and Pain Rehabilitation; Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University; Coordinator of Academic Primary Care, Norrtälje TioHundra AB, Karolinska Institute
  • Peter Paul Yu, MD – FACP, FASCO Immediate Past President, American Society of Clinical Oncology
  • Bill McDermott – SAP CEO
  • Dr. David Delaney – SAP’s Chief Medical Officer

precisionmedicine_infographicConsidering the launch of the President’s initiative on Precision Medicine and the full court press of achieving the ‘triple aim’ mandate for improved population health at lower per capita costs, the healthcare ecosystem’s collective leadership across ALL verticals (payor, provider, regulator, supplier, manufacturer, academic, startup and innovation communities’, et al) are challenged to craft a value fueled sustainable healthcare economy.

Two prominent strains of this innovation fueled search for answers amidst a $3 trillion dollar volume incented annual spend are the seemingly polarities of population health and precision medicine.

In this chat, Dr. Ashley shares his insights and rationale for the many ‘synergies’ between the two developing bodies of science vs. the seeming binary choice some have constructed.

 

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