Digital the right medicine for healthy nation – The Australian Financial Review

It is a huge leap forward for global medicine and especially relevant right now as we live longer, healthier lives.

According to the chief medical officer of Sydney health information company, Genome.One, Dr Leslie Burnett, genome sequencing is the holy grail of medicine. It underpins precision healthcare and for the first time it offers the potential for preventing or lessening the impacts of avoidable illnesses in an individual rather than just waiting until the condition appears and only then providing treatment.

For Australia's ageing population it is a heartening breakthrough, especially as many older Australians start to struggle with chronic diseases. Yet before precision healthcare becomes a reality, there are still a few hurdles to overcome, the major one being moving it from the laboratory into your local GP's surgery.

"The gap at present is how we connect genomics into healthcare," Genome.One chief scientific officer and founding CEO, Associate Professor Marcel Dinger says.

"At the moment there is an enormous limitation in terms of how accessible the information is and how it's actually translated into the population. The transition that needs to happen is ensuring genomic medicine has mainstream access so your local GP for example, has access to genomic information to guide their practice."

Bearing this in mind, Dinger says genomic medicine's future lies with a more connected healthcare system and "enabling digital healthcare is fundamental to genomics".

"If it remains constrained within existing clinical and laboratory processes, its promise will never come to bear," he says.

The scale of the challenge is clear for the Garvan Institute-backed start-up, which is undergoing a restructure.

Genome.One's Burnett and Dinger were speaking after a recent joint research study undertaken by Fairfax Media, publisher of The Australian Financial Review, in partnership with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which examined ways in which innovation can underpin the nation's economic future.

Sam Bowen, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, executive director, healthcare, institutional banking and markets, says a major focus of the survey of AFR readers was whether or not Australia's health system is fit-for-purpose considering the nation's ageing population. The research found that 71 per cent of study respondents lack confidence in Australia's preparedness.

To address these shortcomings, respondents highlighted three key initiatives.

Firstly, 49 per cent suggested the community should be encouraged to invest in, and improve, their long-term health. Secondly, more than 40 per cent of respondents recommended helping people of a working age to fund their own long-term healthcare and finally, 39 per cent of respondents indicated there needs to be more investment in technological innovations that assist with home healthcare.

Chief executive officer of aged care provider Estia Health, Norah Barlow bridles at terms like "ageing tsunami" and suggests we should stop thinking of it as a negative.

Barlow acknowledges our ageing population is a challenge and we need to work out how to ensure we have the resources and people available to deal with the coming change.

"In Australia we are not as well prepared as we should be and while there are lots of reviews going on around the aged care set-up, the big question is someone has to think about whether the aged care system is a universal system or is it a subsidised system? It's a hard political question and difficult to answer but when you're well prepared you know how you're going to fund it and what it's going to look like," she says.

Barlow believes Australians are a little ageist when it comes to looking after our elderly. She suggests our view has to change, especially as the aged care sector will generate about 20 per cent of new jobs in the future healthcare economy.

She recommends changing the structure of the aged-care model with more of a focus on rehabilitation. Rather than keeping people in residential care, they should be allowed to return home after a period of rehabilitation and hopefully access reliable and flexible home care services.

As for the future of medicine, Barlow says we have to get digital health right first and foremost. Beyond that immediate challenge, there will be much greater use of technology, with innovations like the virtual doctor, more telehealth and remote monitoring of chronic conditions.

But Barlow warns we can go too far with technology because there is a danger of losing the human interaction in medicine. "We believe that the amazing technology that is emerging will support rather than replace humans in the provision of care."

AFR readers agree. In response to a question about what technological advances are most likely to help with the ageing population, 41 per cent of respondents said that human care is most likely to help.

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Digital the right medicine for healthy nation - The Australian Financial Review