Mayo Clinic is joining forces with a Pittsburgh, Pa.-based technology startup to “cross-pollinate” patient’s medical records with “actionable” genomic information.
The company called 2bPrecise is collaborating to incorporate Mayo Clinic protocols in its cloud-based platform to merge genomic information with electronic medical records. It’s also licensing technology from Mayo Clinic.
It’s a wholly owned subsidiary of Chicago’s Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc. and has about 25 employees on staff.
Mayo Clinic relationship with 2bPrecise is based around research at this point, though it could evolve into clinical use, said founder and CEO Assaf Halevy. Less than 2 years old, 2bPrecise is already being used by early adopters for clinical and research uses.
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“Mayo Clinic has a very robust genomics research discipline,” Halevy said in announcement of the new project this week. “The wealth of both genetic research and clinical data within the clinic is staggering.”
The initial focus of the collaboration will be on genetic cardiovascular disease, specifically something called familial hypercholesterolemia. The teams will attempt to merge Mayo’s FH algorithm into 2bPrecise’s platform, so researchers can test and validate new protocols.
The overall goal of 2bPrecise’s system is make it simple for physicians and researchers to use patient’s genomic information, when making diagnosis and treatment decisions.
“We’ve been working with Mayo for a while to set this set up,” Halevy said this week. “Mayo Clinic will bring the clinical know-how and we’ll be the technology enabler.”
He explained while genomic information offers the power to make medicine more precise, it still is not simple for the average physician to access in a useful way on a daily basis.
“There are a few challenges,” he said.
• Which genomic test will help a patient?
• How can a physician interpret a separate 60 page, unstructured genomics report?
• How can a health care professional translate the complex genomic language into practical clinical terms that can be used in context of the patient?
• How can an overworked physician with limited time thoroughly mesh the genomic data with a patient’s overall condition?
Halevy says 2bPrecise’s platform was created as an answer to those questions.
“It’s a very smart, clean smooth way … of cross-pollinating (genomic information) with clinical info into a harmonized model within an EHR,” he explained.
Mayo Clinic is in the midst of a $1 billion switch to Epic Systems’ health records format. Halevy said that would not be an obstacle to 2bPrecise.
“The plan and the technology is capable of working with solutions, such as Epic and other EHRs,” he said.
While the cloud-based nature of 2bPrecise’s platform allows for a lot of the collaboration to be done remotely, some of Halevy’s team will spend some time on site in Rochester for this project.
Could this interaction eventually evolve into a 2bPrecise office in Rochester? He cautioned that it’s very early to speculate about that.
However, “2bPrecise’s culture and DNA as a company, if you will, is to work really close with our partners and early adopters. We’d definitely consider that a potential option.”
Other companies are working on ways to incorporate genomic data with EHRs as health care adopts more and more technological tools to aid in daily patient care. However, Halevy believes his firm is at the forefront of the pack in developing the best solution.
“What we are hoping to achieve is to be a dominate leader in enabling precision medicine and the way we, as consumers, are being diagnosed and later treated in much more intelligent, predictive way than today,” he said.
Date:June 10, 2017