ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Healthcare visionary and business leader Patrick Soon-Shiong, M.D., was a joint keynote speaker today with Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg during the CTIA Wireless 2011 conference being held in Orlando, Florida. He set out his vision of how today’s wireless technologies can now help bring about a revolution in healthcare, realizing the dream of personalized medicine by connecting with what he calls the “human signal engine”— the wide array of information now available from genomics and proteomics, as well as more traditional tests and scans, and the data the body receives through the senses. Soon-Shiong’s remarks will be available after 10 a.m. EDT by visiting http://daily.ctia.org/wireless2011/.
Dr. Soon-Shiong revealed a stunning new object recognition technology which could enable any mobile device with a camera to read dollar bill denominations, and even “read” a newspaper and automatically connect the user with related video stories or Web sites.
“Technologies like this will transform life for the visually impaired. It will empower them,” he commented. “And there are a host of non-medical applications for this technology as well.”
Within a handful of years, Soon-Shiong predicted, it will be commonplace for cancer patients to have their genome sequenced and analyzed, and for patient-specific treatment guidance to be sent to mobile devices at the point of care.
“There is a widening gulf between medical science, which thanks to genomics and proteomics can now show us how disease affects individual patients at a molecular level, and the delivery of healthcare, which is increasingly struggling to absorb even yesterday’s information,” said Soon-Shiong. “Information technologies now exist that will enable us to close that gap, and enable real time information to be used by healthcare providers and consumers, thereby giving us better health and a more cost effective system of care.”
Soon-Shiong, whose keynote address was delivered via video from Los Angeles, where the part owner of the Lakers was grounded by a basketball injury, described an array of wireless technologies now becoming available to monitor the health of patients with chronic conditions, enabling healthcare professionals to intervene in real time, and before illnesses become acute. “This will bring great improvements in health outcomes,” said Soon-Shiong, “and will save a lot of money. Eighty percent of our healthcare costs are accounted for by chronic illness.”
About Patrick Soon-Shiong
Dr. Soon-Shiong is Chairman of the Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation, Chairman and CEO of the Institute for Advanced Health, Chairman and CEO of the Healthcare Transformation Institute and founder of the National Coalition for Health Integration. A physician, surgeon and scientist, he has pioneered new therapies for both diabetic and cancer patients, holds over 50 US patents, and has published over 100 scientific papers. He has developed and sold two multi-billion dollar companies, American Pharmaceutical Partners (APP) and Abraxis BioScience (ABII). Since 2006, Dr.Soon-Shiong’s business and philanthropic endeavors have been devoted to transforming healthcare by establishing an integrated health information platform and promoting a paradigm shift in healthcare in the United States by better integrating the three now separate domains of medical science, healthcare delivery and healthcare finance.
In 2010, Soon-Shiong became a co-owner of the LA Lakers. Also in 2010, in partnership with the Los Angeles Business Journal he founded the Patrick Soon-Shiong Innovation Awards; the first winners of these annual awards were six companies from the media, entertainment, engineering and aerospace sectors.
In the past two months, it has been announced that Soon-Shiong has acquired two companies: Vitality Inc., a Boston-based developer of the first wireless internet-enabled smart pill bottles for improved medication adherence; and Fourth Wall Studios, a pioneering, next generation entertainment company incorporating transmedia, social gaming and augmented reality.