The White House’s Cancer Moonshot 2020 (Opens in a new window) is about much more than clinical research. Data, IT and patient engagement are major components.
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Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday is hosting the first National Cancer Moonshot Summit on the campus of Howard University in Washington, and lots of news is being made.
Granted, there was the usual complement of cheerleading and optimism, as some observed.
It was a great big pep rally today for the #CancerMoonshot (Opens in a new window) https://t.co/D3VxHYMrYZ (Opens in a new window)
— Maggie Fox (@maggiemfox) June 29, 2016 (Opens in a new window)
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Healthcare is drowning in chaos—from scattered data to burnout-inducing tasks. Discover how smarter workflows and real-time insights can rescue care teams and transform patient outcomes.
"We're on the cusp of breakthroughs," says VP Biden. #CancerMoonshot (Opens in a new window) #CanServe (Opens in a new window) pic.twitter.com/mdwNrMB5jT (Opens in a new window)
— Inspire (@InspireIsHealth) June 29, 2016 (Opens in a new window)
But there also was plenty of substance.
It wouldn’t be a major event anymore without IBM Watson Health (Opens in a new window)announcing something, would it? This time, Watson is teaming with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (Opens in a new window) to bring precision medicine to 10,000 veterans with cancer over the next two years.
According to IBM:
Scientists and pathologists will sequence DNA for cancer patients, then feed de-identified genetic alteration files into Watson. Watson will generate a report for physicians that identifies the likely cancer-causing mutations and possible treatment options to target those specific mutations through a comprehensive review of existing medical literature – a data-intensive process that has been time-consuming and difficult to scale in the past.
DocGraph (Opens in a new window), a startup run by health data scientist Fred Trotter, said (Opens in a new window) it would work with analytics firm CareSet Systems to release a data set on nearly 1 million cancer patients, based on the vast Medicare claims database.
The University of California, the Athena Breast Health Network (Opens in a new window), Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative (Opens in a new window) and Salesforce (Opens in a new window) said they would develop a new care model that, according to Biden’s office, “evolves the point of care into a patient-centric data hub.”
The White House also highlighted other, recently announced initiatives. These include:
- The Oncology Precision Network (OPeN) (Opens in a new window), sponsored by Syapse, in conjunciton with Intermountain Healthcare, Stanford Cancer Institute, Providence Health & Services, Catholic Health Initiatives and Henry Ford Health System.
- A bioinformatics lab for pediatric cancer research (Opens in a new window), backed by Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation.
See this White House fact sheet (Opens in a new window) on the Cancer Moonshot Summit for more information.