Future of the EHR: Exponential Increase in Storage

[CC-Conrad Clyburn-MedForeSight]

Colleagues,

Please see excerpt from recent post penned by MedTech-IQ member Gerry Higgins in Anthony Guerra's informative blog, HealthsystemsCIO.com...

See full blog at: http://healthsystemcio.com/2010/03/20/future-of-the-ehr-exponential...


ENJOY!

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It’s not just genomic scientists that are dealing with enormous amounts of DNA sequence data – the clinician will soon be next ...

... “There will be an explosion of family sequencing that will identify disease genes,” Dr. Leroy Hood, Director of the Institute for Systems Biology, said in a recent interview. “My prediction is that most of us will have our genome sequences done, included as part of our medical records, and it will be an important part of predictive medicine.” This suggests that “all Healthcare IT systems will soon be overwhelmed by patient genomic and pharmacogenomic data.”...

... As stated by Dr. George Church, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Center for Computational Genetics, said in a Newsweek interview,  - The message is not “Here’s your destiny. Get used to it!” Instead, it’s “Here’s your destiny, and you can do something about it!” Diseases result from a combination of genetic vulnerability and lifestyle. If you know you have high risk of certain diseases, it’s in your interest to know and practice the lifestyle that reduces your risk—and the younger, the better.”...

... Whole genome sequence analysis, while still expensive, is dropping in price in a dramatic fashion (See Figure below), much faster than the proverbial Moore’s law ...

... This has created a need for more computing resources.  For example, Washington University’s current scientific and clinical genomic data center, a 16,000-square-foot facility that houses approximately 5,000 processors and more than 5 petabytes of disk storage, is nearly 90
percent full...

... One obvious solution may be Cloud Computing storage or offsite server farms, connected to the EHR through Web Services by a Secure Socket Layer (SSL), that helps protect patient confidentiality.  However, this approach has not fully reached the mainstream of development in the EHR realm...

Adapted from presentation from Dr. George Church at the Cold Spring Harbor Lab, “Personal Genomes” meeting: