Discovering Precision Health: Predict, Prevent, and Cure to Advance Health and Well-Being / Edition 1

by Lloyd Minor, Matthew Rees

Overview

Today we are on the brink of a much-needed transformative moment for health care.

The U.S. health care system is designed to be reactive instead of preventive. The result is diagnoses that are too late and outcomes that are far worse than our level of spending should deliver. In recent years, U.S. life expectancy has been declining.

Fundamental to realizing better health, and a more effective health care system, is advancing the disruptive thinking that has spawned innovation in Silicon Valley and throughout the world. That's exactly what Stanford Medicine has done by proposing a new vision for health and health care. In Discovering Precision Health, Lloyd Minor and Matthew Rees describe a holistic approach that will set health care on the right track: keep people healthy by preventing disease before it starts and personalize the treatment of individuals precisely, based on their specific profile.

With descriptions of the pioneering work undertaken at Stanford Medicine, complemented by fascinating case studies of innovations from entities including the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, GRAIL, and Impossible Foods, Minor and Rees present a dynamic vision for the future of individual health and health care. You ll see how tools from smartphone technology to genome sequencing to routine blood tests are helping avert illness and promote health. And you'll learn about the promising progress already underway in bringing greater precision to the process of predicting, preventing, and treating a range of conditions, including allergies, mental illness, preterm birth, cancer, stroke, and autism.

The book highlights how biomedical advances are dramatically improving our ability to treat and cure complex diseases, while emphasizing the need to devote more attention to social, behavioral, and environmental factors that are often the primary determinants of health.

The authors explore thought-provoking topics including:

• The unlikely role of Google Glass in treating autism
• How gene editing can advance precision in treating disease
• What medicine can learn from aviation
• How digital tools can contribute to health and innovation

Discovering Precision Health showcases entirely new ways of thinking about health and health care and can help empower us to lead healthier lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781119672692
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	01/28/2020
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

LLOYD MINOR, MD, is the Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine as well as a professor of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery and a professor of bioengineering and of neurobiology, by courtesy, at Stanford University.

MATTHEW REES is the president of Geonomica, an editorial consulting firm in McLean, Virginia, and a senior fellow at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. He has worked as a speechwriter at the White House and a journalist for the Wall Street Journal and the Economist.

Table of Contents

About the Authors ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction The Power of Precision Health 1

Chapter 1 The State of U.S. Health and Health Care Delivery 15

Chapter 2 There’s More to “Health” Than Health Care 33

Chapter 3 The Innovation and Disruption Powering Progress in Health 43

Chapter 4 Fundamental, Discovery‐Focused Research: The Foundation of Biomedical Breakthroughs 111

Chapter 5 Peering into the Future: Leveraging The Powers of Prediction to Help Prevent Illness 147

Chapter 6 Prevention as a Pathway to Health and Wellness 177

Chapter 7 Curing Disease with More Precise Medical Therapies 207

Conclusion Achieving Precision Health: The Opportunities—and Challenges—Ahead 237

Notes 243

Index 259

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Vincent F Carr, DO, MSA, FACC, FACP (Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences)
Description: This is a seminal, visionary book of the new paradigm of "Predict, Prevent, and Cure to Advance Health and Well-Being."
Purpose: The purpose is to serve as an outstanding and defining primer on Precision Health, how the concepts were developed, and ways to move from the present to the future in medicine and more importantly, in health.
Audience: This is a book for every academic, legislator, policy maker, clinician, and layperson. The concepts are appealing and intuitive, leading readers to consider "why did we not think of that earlier?" One of the authors is the dean of Stanford University School of Medicine who describes the school's vision for Precision Health as well as his work to realize that vision.
Features: The book is divided into an extensive introduction, "The Power of Precision Health," in which the authors invite the readers to think into the future. They describe the past and present history of the Precision Health movement and raise many key principles, defining and clarifying these to refine the discussion. The introduction also gives an inspiring historical perspective of the author and how he came to Precision Health at the Stanford School of Medicine and worked to "help reorient how health and medicine are viewed in the United States, and even throughout the world." The introduction is followed by seven chapters and a conclusion covering topics such as the state of U.S. health and healthcare delivery; "there's more to 'health' than health care;" the innovation and disruption powering progress in health; fundamental, discovery-focused research and the foundation of biomedical breakthroughs; leveraging the powers of prediction to help prevent illness; prevention as a pathway to health and wellness; curing disease with more precise medical therapies; and the opportunities and challenges ahead of achieving Precision Health. The chapters tend to lead one's thoughts in a continuum, the early chapters laying groundwork for subsequent chapters and include vignettes of historical value that lead to new and additional concepts laid down in the chapter. There is an extensive bibliography for each chapter and a very nice index inclusive of the words and previous authors whose works are cited.
Assessment: This is an outstanding contribution to the world of medicine detailing an exciting way forward to change the thinking from medical care to maintaining health. It is provocative reading for all.

Doody's Review Service