Predictive Health: Future Targets In Improving Patient Outcomes
According to the World Health Organization, 41% of the deaths worldwide have a direct correlation to unhealthy behaviors and deaths oftentimes are just the end of a chronic disease. In 2020 the global chronic disease prevalence has peaked at 57%.
Rapidly growing healthcare spendings have become one of the most significant challenges in many countries. In today’s more complex reimbursement and cost-sensitive environment the healthcare ecosystem needs to deliver therapeutic solutions: it has to be quality driven on all levels and not just based on quantities — like e.g. drug and surgery based therapies.
Predictive Health is an approach of analytic-enabled solutions to help the life science ecosystem to build evidence-driven longitudinal disease profiles, improve patient outcomes and increase economic value across the health care system.
Existing evidence indicates that healthcare spending is concentrated among a small number of costly “chronic” disease patients, typically defined as those who account for the top 5% of annual healthcare costs — so-called high-need, high-cost (HNHC) patients. Research has shown that the top 1%-5% high-cost patients accounted for 23% to 50 % of all healthcare costs. Accurately predicting “future” chronic patients and designing targeted interventions for them has the potential to effectively control rapidly growing healthcare expenditures.
We at EVOCAL Health believe in Predictive Health as an effective method to improve patient outcome and as a solution to reduce the cost burden in the healthcare system. In the first step it is vital to “understand” the driving forces of the development and worthening. Especially the prediction of an exacerbation of a chronic disease like COPD or asthma defined as an acute event characterized by a worsening of the patient’s e.g. respiratory symptoms that is beyond normal day-to-day variations — will lead to a positive outcome for the patient.
Early recognition of exacerbation symptoms and prompt treatment improves recovery rates, reduces the risk of hospitalization, and will stay longitudinal for a significant improvement in the healthcare system. It is the step towards Predictive Health to detect the first signs of exacerbations so that the patients can be appropriately treated in a timely manner and optionally prioritized by healthcare professionals.
In the field of Predictive Health, the next step will be to develop clear profiles of the longitudinal courses e.g. asthma: From childhood to old age. These profiles are in turn associated with different profiles of extrapulmonary comorbidity and different risk for other chronic diseases. These findings can be used for a personalized approach in clinical guidelines and management with a focus on treatable characteristics. Profiles in Predictive Health are a new target for early detection and intervention.
