The Untapped Potential of Real-World Disease Progression Data

Today, the healthcare system has only access to two types of data. One from healthy people who are doing their regular check-ups and visits and the other one is data from already diseased people that are admitted and started their treatment in the hospital.
But what is happening in between? How the disease progress is happening outside the hospital settings, what happens to the data from the mid risk level people, the people that has the potantial to develop chronic diseases but are not in high risk level.

Hospital-centered care offers a limited window into patient health. As soon as patients leave the clinical setting, their disease progression becomes a black box. Without data on how diseases progress and biomarkers fluctuate between visits, providers lose insights. Patients may deteriorate undiscerned, leading to over-admissions and costs.

Real-world, continuous disease progression data holds immense untapped potential. By tracking biomarkers over time in patients’ natural environments, researchers could unlock groundbreaking discoveries:

• Understanding predictors of rapid progression or sudden declines. Enabling earlier intervention.

• Mapping the impact of medications and lifestyle factors on biomarkers. Optimizing treatment plans.

• Developing finely tuned models of disease progression tailored to sub-populations. Delivering precision care.

• Detecting the earliest signs of change in disease state. Allowing true preventative medicine.

Access to large-scale real-world data could also accelerate pharmaceutical research tremendously. Drug trials today capture only periodic data snapshots. With continuous biomarker readouts, researchers could better analyze the effect of experimental drugs, reducing trial costs and timelines.

The future of medicine lies in early, proactive care fueled by granular disease insights. But we cannot uncover these insights without daring to step beyond hospital-centric data. The possibilities are vast if we tap into underutilized sources like remote patient monitoring. The time to start is now.