Enabling Personalized Medicine through Health Information Technology

Brookings Institution
Friday, January 28, 2011
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Contact: Brookings Office of Communications
events@brookings.edu
202.797.6105
http://www.brookings.edu/events/2011/0128_personalized_medicine.aspx

Personalized medicine can offer better-targeted treatments, health system cost savings and an enhanced understanding of care options’ comparative effectiveness. This health care model would be further enhanced by the use of information technology to aggregate health care data so that researchers can develop a new understanding of what types of therapies will work for what types of people. But as government stimulus funds for health information technology are spent, what can be done to ensure that new systems are capable of handling, sharing and analyzing the genetic and outcomes data needed to promote the continued development of personalized medicine? What policies are needed to ensure that the public investment in health information technology supports new paradigms – like personalized medicine – rather than just automating and capturing medical practices of the past?

The Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings will host a policy discussion focused on the challenges of enabling personalized medicine, as well as the policy and operational changes that would facilitate connectivity, integration, reimbursement reform and secondary analysis of information. Vice President and Director of Governance Studies Darrell West will present key findings and recommendations from his forthcoming paper about the public policy actions needed to ensure that health information technology facilitates the adoption of personalized medicine in the U.S. healthcare system. David Brailer, chairman of Health Evolution Partners and the first "health information czar” during the Bush administration, will deliver a keynote address.

After the program, speakers will take audience questions.

Keynote Speaker
David Brailer
Chairman
Health Evolution Partners

Moderator
Darrell M. West
Vice President and Director, Governance Studies

Panelists
Paul Billings
Chief Medical Officer
Life Technologies Corp.

Mark Boguski
Associate Professor
Center for Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School

Emad Rizk
President
McKesson Health Solutions

Donald W. Rucker
Vice President and Chief Medical Officer
Siemens Medical Solutions USA