Data promises to vastly improve health outcomes
Early diagnosis a leap forward,
Spending 30 years in the healthcare industry couldn’t prepare me for what was about to happen in my own health journey.
Earlier this year, I fought and overcame cancer in my neck. On a trip to my doctor for a followup, I noticed something odd on one of my CT scans. I pointed it out to my doctor, who immediately realized it was an aneurysm. The 7.5-centimetre bulge on my abdominal aorta was ready to burst. A few days later, I had a successful procedure and was again given a clean bill of health. Two close calls.
Aneurysms are silent killers. Notoriously hard to detect, it’s even harder to know when it might rupture. Nearly 75 per cent of all patients with a ruptured aneurysm die from the condition. Let that sink in.
After sharing the harrowing experience with work colleagues, I learned my own company, Orion Health, had launched a pioneering project in New Zealand to spot aneurysms, with the ultimate goal of identifying those in danger and giving them a chance to have life-saving surgery.
Orion Health, together with the University of Auckland and Waitemata District Health Board, created a machine learning model to reduce the cost of healthcare and save lives by identifying patients at risk of an aneurysms. Based on epidemiological studies, 800 New Zealanders were identified as likely candidates for abdominal aortic aneurysms during a precision screening trial. Of the 632 patients who took up the offer of an ultrasound, 36 were found to have abdominal aneurysms, a prevalence rate of 5.5 per cent — almost exactly the rate that was predicted by the data analysis.
Precision health is an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that considers individual variability in general environments and lifestyles. With the explosion of healthcare data, clinicians are better-equipped to make care decisions based on data rather than intuition, clinical visits or trials.
With the proper approach, Canada can prevent silent killers.
Tying artificial intelligence, data analytics and databases together, scientists use the information to identify at-risk populations. The information can help identify people at risk of aneurysms, asthma, diabetes and more.
Giving way to a new era of care, precision health allows clinicians to catch diseases and conditions before they become more serious and much costlier to the healthcare system.
It is an approach that has proven to improve health outcomes. It helps governments and administrators identify where to allocate money to treat at-risk patient populations, through prevention or better care.
With the right resources, GPs can use a handheld ultrasound to check an at-risk patient for an aneurysm right in their office.
The explosion of patient data in hospitals, labs, pharmacies and communities presents an immense opportunity. However, it is often unconnected and unshared, making it extremely difficult to take that extra step and utilize it for effective precision health. My colleague, Dr. Chris Hobson, wrote on the subject earlier this year, urging decision-makers to fix information gaps in the healthcare system.
Some regions and provinces across Canada have very rich databases of patient data and are in a position to mine them for the benefit of the patient. The combination of robust databases, funding and employment of more data scientists would go a long way toward improving healthcare through the lens of precision health.
The world is on the cusp of an astonishing change in how we approach health. Rather than racing to cure disease once it happens, we can progressively prevent it before it attacks. With the proper approach, Canada can prevent silent killers, improve outcomes for our populations and usher in a new era of care.