U.S. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) Chairman, U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce ready for Cures Agenda.
Is Your Healthcare Organization Ready?
According to the World Health Organization in 2011, the U.S. spent more on health care per capita ($8,608), and more on health care as percentage of its GDP (17.2%), than any other nation. Moreover, last year Bloomberg released a study that ranked the efficiency of the U.S. healthcare system 46th among 48 countries.
Republicans Launch Their “Cures Agenda”
Given the ailing status of U.S. healthcare system, U.S. House Republican leaders are ready to announce their “Cures Agenda.” The Cures Agenda is a public-private initiative that will focus on combining the latest medical advances with the supremacy of today’s information technology, computers and social networking. The Cures Agenda will be led by US House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI). Chairman Upton has already secured the support of Republican leaders in the House. Astute healthcare organizations are already preparing for the Cures Agenda as the debate will highlight medical advancements and how the industry will provide more personalized treatments in the future.
“U.S. regulatory policies remain stuck in the (past) era”
Last month in an article for U.S. News and World Report Chairman Upton stated, “Patients, doctors and scientists are now linked like never before. Today these three disciplines – medicine, computers and social networks – have an unprecedented opportunity to collaborate as friends in a new way to help us to live longer, healthier lives. Yet this progress will never be fully realized if U.S. regulatory policies remain stuck in the (past) era.”
In a recent meeting with Chairman Upton, Cansler Consulting learned Chairman Upton intends to soon convene the Energy and Commerce Committee for a series of listening sessions and roundtables. These will serve to gather advice and advance ideas such as streamlining approval processes, spurring more scientific collaboration and ensuring the U.S. remains the world leader in healthcare and research. Upton indicated he already has some topics for the hearings. Some of those topics include:
- Educating and emphasizing personalized medicine. Today we understand more about human genomes and biology at the molecular level. But the diversity and change among individuals and mutation of diseases over time oftentimes require many different therapies. Our regulatory system must be altered and redesigned in a way to address these scientific parameters. Last year in our article on P4 Medicine we relayed the need
for a “dramatic paradigm shift in every component of the U.S. healthcare systems including patient experiences, insurance coverage, medical education and the design of medical facilities to offer treatment plans developed for individual patients.” - Improving our understanding from many exciting medical breakthroughs occurring in evaluation of illnesses at the molecular level. We understand more about enzymes and proteins that trigger cancer growth. We can detect defective genetic structures earlier than before and prevent clinical symptoms from developing. We maintain an enhanced understanding of structural biology that allows us to develop drugs that interact positively with the body’s immune system.
- Combining our advancing information and computer technology with 21st Century medicine so that doctors, patients and research and development teams can be more interconnected than ever before. U.S. information technology, computers, iPad’s, iPhones and social networking are delivering limitless communications capabilities but are developing on a separate track. Over the next ten years the U.S healthcare system should adapt and use these communication advancements to help reduce healthcare costs through more efficient methods of things like targeting and monitoring of patients, selection and research of patients involved in clinical trials and supplying medicines on an individual’s need.
- Improving public-private collaborations involving patients, doctors, researchers and technological innovators are the future of the ever-evolving U.S. healthcare industry. Government’s role should be facilitating such collaborations.
If your healthcare organization is interested in being a leader in the Cures Agenda call Cansler Consulting.
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