Holistic precision wellness: Paving the way for next-generation precision medicine (ngPM) with AI, biomedical informatics, and clinical medicine

Abstract

A "quiet revolution" in medicine has been taking place over the past two decades. There are two converging dynamic forces that have propelled precision medicine to the limelight, garnering wide public attention. The first driver is the realization that populations within a disease area can be stratified, thus developing therapies tailored to their specific needs, and the capability to identify these populations by analyzing large, diverse datasets. The second driver is technology advances in multi-omics approaches and applications (i.e., molecularly informed medicine) enabling a more comprehensive portrait of disease biology. This promises to not only accelerate the development of precision medicine processes but also presents challenges for healthcare professionals and health systems that are struggling to interconnect and integrate disparate data sources into a cohesive clinical strategy to the benefit of their patients. We coin here the term next-generation precision medicine (ngPM), which is bound to become conventional in the clinics sooner or later. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in healthcare have transformative potential and are a strategic response to today's challenges and tomorrow's opportunities. The chief challenges here are how well precision medicine (PM) permeates primary care to become a standard of care and drive toward precision wellness or precision lifestyle (ngPM), while ensuring access to care is feasible, streamlined, and routine. We present here a perspective that would harness the power of ngPM for precision wellness.

Keywords: P4 medicine; artificial intelligence; biomedical informatics; lifestyle medicine; multi‐omics; precision medicine; wellness.

FIGURE 1

Healthcare continuum. Precision healthcare and precision public health elevate healthcare systems at the population level, with a focus on tailoring interventions. This continuum, based on the Information Management Systems (IMS) framework, illustrates how healthcare models range from centralized to decentralized structures per geographical region. The “balancing saw” graphic emphasizes the delicate equilibrium between government involvement, funding mechanisms, and cultural/ethnic influences that shape each healthcare system.

FIGURE 2

Information management path. Converting datasets into useful knowledge to improve healthcare. Adapted from Sarwar et al. and Zhai et al. 2022., Data science is instrumental in transforming raw data into quantifiable data leading to insights (useful information/knowledge) which are delineated in the left‐side pathway. Scalable infrastructure, fast connectivity, and cloud computing, shown in the right‐side panel, are critical and integral pieces for real‐time large data exchange among participants like hospitals, clinical laboratories, patients EHR, public health entities, etc. that possess specific information architecture (patient record database) per their function that is accessed via a portal.

FIGURE 3

The future of medicine—P4 medicine. Medicine that is patient‐centered, data‐driven care, which is predictive (P1), preventive (P2), personalized (P3), and participatory (P4), referred to as P4‐medicine, to march toward precision wellness and QoL lifestyle. P4‐medicine is about applying ngPM “healthcare” approach to achieve precision wellness. The convergence of systems medicine (P1‐4) has circular connectivity that is also influenced by social networks and digital revolution.,

FIGURE 4

Pillars of quality of life (QoL) ecosystem. Healthcare systems, biomedical researchers, and education organizations must join forces to explore innovative precision wellness solutions. PM healthcare services offered to clinical data of individuals, biomedical research outcomes, knowledge and education, and collaborations and partnerships would harness the power of technology and innovation like high‐performance computing, AI, ML, and ngPM to drive patient outcomes by improving QoL and enhancing the delivery of public health services. The realization of this effort is supported through network ecosystem connectivity., , ,