Geoffrey S. Ginsburg
Duke
Digital Health
Digital health – the use of mobile and sensor technologies in health care and in support of wellness – is gaining momentum across all medical disciplines. Wearables, sensors and data science technologies are increasingly being used to identify health risks, assist with diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of health and disease. Health care is being decentralized motivated by the rising burden of chronic disease, consumer empowerment, democratization of data, and Moore’s law. In tandem there are advances in sensor and semiconductor technologies allowing for telemedicine, continuous measures of health, environment, and geospatial data to inform individual and population health. Digital solutions can not only to facilitate delivery of care but also to improve patient outcomes and health care efficiencies. Yet, there are strategic challenges to digital health that need to be addressed before it can be broadly adopted. There are key evidentiary gaps in clinical and cost-effectiveness, there is a paucity of clinical guidelines and regulatory frameworks. There are ethical and policy challenges across the continuum – from the generation of data, its clinical delivery and uptake, to access and governance as well as growing digital health inequities. A research agenda, guided by learning healthcare systems, will be required to realize the vision of digital health and to ensure its sustainable and equitable deployment. Novel partnerships between innovators in semiconductor materials, devices, and health care are necessary to realize the full potential of digital health as highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bio
Dr. Ginsburg is a Professor of Medicine and Pathology at Duke University Medical Center, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke Pratt School of Engineering, and Professor in the School of Nursing Duke University. He is the founding director for the Center for Applied Genomics & Precision Medicine at the Duke University Medical Center and for MEDx, a partnership between the Schools of Medicine and Engineering to spark and translate innovation. His research addresses the challenges for translating genomic and digital health information into medical practice and the integration of precision medicine into healthcare. In 2017 he received Duke’s Translational Research Mentorship Award and is a finalist in the NIH/BARDA Antimicrobial Resistance Prize. He was a member of the Advisory Council to the Director of NIH and is co-chair of the National Academies Roundtable on Genomic and Precision Health and is founder and president of the Global Genomic Medicine Collaborative, a not-for-profit organization aimed creating international partnerships to advance the implementation of precision medicine. He has recently served as a member of the Board of External Experts for the NHLBI, the advisory council for the National Center for Accelerating Translational Science, chair of the review for Genome Canada’s Large Scale Applied Research Competition in Genomics and Precision Medicine, and the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of the Health Sector. He is a founder of Predigen, Inc and MeTree&You, Inc. He was previously Vice President of Molecular Medicine at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and a faculty member at Harvard Medical School.