Precision health is broader than precision medicine. It combines health records; omics data, including genetic and genomic sequence, protein, metabolite, and microbiome information; lifestyle and environmental factors; and social determinants of health, including education, income, housing, and discrimination. All this information can provide precise diagnosis and prognosis of diseases as well as target interventions, therapies, and care plans that enhance individual and public health, human performance, and operational readiness. In addition to eliminating disease and public health threats, the goal is also to help each person achieve their optimal long-term health by gaining a deep understanding of their comprehensive health profile, lifestyle, personal health goals, and any other factors that may be affecting their health.
Powered by rapidly evolving technologies like next-generation genomic sequencing, advanced analytics, big-data architecture, and digital technologies (e.g., Internet-of-Things using personal wearable devices), precision health is poised to have an impact on individual health, performance, and readiness by accelerating diagnoses, improving prognostic accuracy, facilitating tailored therapeutic interventions, empowering the development and targeting of health promotion and protection strategies, and enabling optimization of training and recovery regimes. Precision health will also impact public health by enabling accelerated detection and tailored responses to public health threats.
Worldwide, many efforts and initiatives are underway to create implementation strategies for precision health; however, unlocking this promise will require overcoming complex challenges in health data quality standardization and technology integration, and determining broadly acceptable solutions to a host of privacy, ethical, regulatory, and social concerns. An innovative informatics capacity is also needed to enhance connectivity and interoperability of clinical, laboratory, and public health systems. With cross-disciplinary expertise in data architecture, analytics, healthcare operations, clinical care, and the life sciences, Booz Allen is well-equipped to help clients across the health realm—from policy to delivery—succeed in realizing precision health’s burgeoning potential.
