Prospective Healthcare: Real Reform

Let the big government types defend comparative effectiveness generated decisions that exclude and undermine the health of minorities... We are supporting a different, more compassionate and equitable approach...

Prospective Health Consortium: Development and Assessment of Predictive Tools in Disease Prevention and Wellness Promotion

A core mission of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest is to spur approaches to the problem of chronic illness in medically underserved communities that are not “one size fits all” or based on studies that ignore clinical, behavioral and genetic variations in disease progression and treatment response.    Our efforts build on the leadership and pioneering work of the National Minority Quality Forum in using data to map and identify these variations.

We are proud to support the launch of a consortium that would develop and evaluate a tool for health risk assessment and treatment selection based on predictive information relatively unique to that individual that can be used to reduce disease and promote wellness in medically underserved communities.

The idea of a consortium is based on discussions held in May at Brookings Institution at a meeting entitled “A Critical Path for Personalized Medicine”.   That meeting -- chaired by Dr. Mark McClellan and Sir Michael Rawlins -- discussed ways to demonstrate how predictive or personalized medicine could be used to improve the quality of care and health outcomes.  In particular, Ralph Snyderman MD, Chancellor Emeritus of Duke University Medical Center and CEO of Proventys, called for an evaluation of an tools  bringing together the latest technologies to predict events and enable intervention before damage occurs.    Combining personalized risk prediction and strategic health-care planning will facilitate what Snyderman calls ‘prospective health care’.

Stay tuned.