Geisinger leaders tell Harvard Business Review that extension of gene sequencing research program to clinical care signals new era for population health
Standard screening tests such as colonoscopy, mammography, and cholesterol measurement are fine for individuals at average risk for cancer and heart disease but are inadequate for people whose genetic profiles put them at much higher risk, the Geisinger leaders said in an article published today in the Harvard Business Review.
Geisinger President and Chief Executive Officer David T. Feinberg, Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer David H. Ledbetter, and Huntington F. Willard, director of Geisinger National Precision Health, wrote that current clinical guidelines are failing to identify about half of the individuals at high risk for these inherited diseases. “We need a different approach that accurately forecasts their risk and anticipates their health needs,” the authors said.
Thanks to the MyCode Community Health Initiative, genetic sequencing for Geisinger patients is becoming a clinical reality for all patients in the community, not just as a diagnostic test for patients already sick, the authors said.
Geisinger’s DNA sequencing project has the potential to identify virtually everyone in our patient population who is at increased risk for diseases such as early onset, inherited cancer and cardiac events, the authors said.
“Already we have identified more than 500 patients who are at increased risk for disease and have uncovered previously undetected cases of cancer and heart disease, allowing our doctors to help these patients much earlier than they could have otherwise,” they wrote in the article.
While currently Geisinger anticipates about 3 percent of MyCode participants will be found to have genetic variants associated with a high risk of disease, it expects that number to rise to as high as 10 percent to 15 percent in the future as the roles of additional genes and variants in disease are understood.
About Geisinger
Geisinger is among the nation’s leading providers of value-based care, serving 1.2 million people in urban and rural communities across Pennsylvania. Founded in 1915 by philanthropist Abigail Geisinger, the nonprofit system generates $10 billion in annual revenues across 126 care sites — including 10 hospital campuses — and Geisinger Health Plan, with more than half a million members in commercial and government plans. Geisinger College of Health Sciences educates more than 5,000 medical professionals annually and conducts more than 1,400 clinical research studies. With 26,000 employees, including 1,700 employed physicians, Geisinger is among Pennsylvania’s largest employers with an estimated economic impact of $15 billion to the state’s economy. On March 31, 2024, Geisinger became the first member of Risant Health, a new nonprofit charitable organization created to expand and accelerate value-based care across the country. Learn more at geisinger.org or follow on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X.
