New Zealand's patient care will be "miles ahead of anywhere else in the world" if a new multi-million dollar research project succeeds.
That's according to Auckland UniServices chief executive, Dr Andy Shenk, talking of The Precision Driven Health research partnership - worth more than $37.8 million, involving health software leader Orion Health, the Waitemata District Health Board, which covers the largest population in New Zealand, the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, the University of Auckland and its knowledge transfer company UniServices.
While the phrase "precision health" provokes images of a scalpel-wielding surgeon, it in fact represents the research partnership focused on improving the health of New Zealanders and providing them with better experiences as a patient.
"If we succeed in achieving the vision of this partnership, patient care in New Zealand will be miles ahead of anywhere else in the world," says Shenk, adding its aim is to deliver better healthcare and treatment through new technologies - moving away from the "one size fits all" approach to patient care.
Precision medicine is where all information relating to a person's health and well-being - clinical, genetic, devices, environmental and lifestyle factors - are combined and made available to the patient and health professionals to improve the level of personalised care.
Existing medical data sources don't enable maximised personalised care because what's happened in the past is not the sole predictor of someone's future health - other factors such as genetics, social circumstances, behaviour, and environmental exposure also come into play.
"We want to move to an understanding of what makes a difference for an individual; to derive insights from all that information," Shenk explains. "Once you have that information on enough people, you can start to understand more effectively what ultimately works best for each person.
"It's a systems approach. We want to be able to understand and combine all the different types of data - scans, genetic and nutritional data, medical histories, prescriptions - which are all coded differently but all impact on an individual's current state of wellness."
The partnership - which has an initial commitment of seven years - is expected to involve more than 50 research projects across a range of disciplines in the university, including data analytics, machine learning, software engineering and predictive modelling.
"The real excitement for us is the creative spark which comes from gathering together all the complementary skills," says Shenk.
From a healthcare provider perspective, the aim is to improve patient outcomes and care through the joint research venture.
"As a patient, you have a long-standing relationship with your GP, whom you know and trust. Then you break your leg and someone else treats you in hospital and they don't know you. Precision health should make it more likely you will have that deep understanding and meaningful relationship with the whole of the system," Shenk says.
"Auckland is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world. So the opportunities are highest here to make sure the insights derived fit and are applicable to all New Zealanders."
From a digital technology perspective, the aim is to transform the way healthcare is managed: "Those managing your care need to know they are managing the right things and producing a superior outcome.
"The partnership clearly needs leaders like Orion Health and Waitemata District Health Board, and they in turn also realise they need people like us - academic researchers, thought leaders - to be able to understand the data and analyse it more effectively.
"The role of government is to hold up the lens and say 'Is this really transformative? Are the partners making a profound contribution?'"
The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment will contribute $14 million in funding over the seven years.
Another key component of the partnership is creating opportunities for students, researchers and health practitioners to be exposed to, and trained in, the rapidly growing field of digital health. The way future employees are trained in the field could also be investigated in the partnership.
Precision Driven Health is one of the largest-scale partnerships ever overseen by UniServices - which manages the University's intellectual property and is responsible for all research-based consultancy partnerships, customised education programmes and commercialisation.
"We've had similar partnerships in the past, built from the same building blocks, imagining how something could be improved by a combination of skills and complementary approaches, and then working together for a significant period of time to do something which each of us would have struggled to do on our own," Shenk says.
He sees the research developed for Precision Driven Health could be applied to other areas like agriculture and nutrition: "In a digital age, we should be thinking about sensors and data integration, insights and decision support that might give a fresh look at things."