Billionaire Developing Smart Grid For Medical Information

By: | February 5th, 2014

Patrick Soon-Shiong

Patrick Soon-Shiong (Image Courtesy www.reuters.com)

DNA Database Will Be at Center of Diagnosis and Treatment

Dr. Soon-Shiong, born in South Africa to Chinese immigrants, now lives in Los Angeles, California and is on Forbes’ list of billionaires with a net worth of $4 billion. Recently, he began investing $1 billion of his fortune to create a smart grid of medical information that will revolutionize the way doctors deliver and patients receive medical care. A new supercomputer-based network will allow doctors to use genome sequencing to treat illnesses such as cancer, Alzheimers, you name it.

Shiong is Chairman of the Institute for Advanced Health, Chairman of the Healthcare Transformation Institute, founder of the National Coalition for Health Integration and has invested in over 10 companies to try to make his vision a reality, including:

  • Dossia – personal health records developer
  • Intel – data & storage
  • Toumaz – remote patient monitoring experts
  • Verizon – communications
  • Vitality – a maker of Glow Caps, which remind patients to take their medications
  • Vodaphone – mobile health services

According to reports, a group of high tech and healthcare companies have been organized to accelerate genetic analysis of patient tumors from the current 8 to 10 weeks to just 47 seconds. Additional advancements will include new healthcare delivery, new payment models and evidence-based treatments and outcomes.

Making Medical Data Sharing Smarter

Shiong is cobbling together existing networks, including the National Lambda Rail, which connects research institutions, NASA and academic centers throughout the United States and genome sequencing centers, data centers and supercomputers.

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David Russell Schilling

David enjoys writing about high technology and its potential to make life better for all who inhabit planet earth.

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