pharmacy professor invited to the white house
janel shoun-smith |
the stanford medicine x conference at the white house included a great deal of interactive discussion and engagement, clauson said.
photos in this story were provided by stanford medicine x.
pharmacy professor brings his own expertise to gathering of national health care leaders
kevin clauson, associate professor of pharmacy practice, was honored in june to be the only pharmacist to be invited to a gathering of 60 health care and technology leaders at a one-day conference hosted by the white house office of science technology and policy and stanford medicine x.
the event focused on “engaging participants as partners in research, a core principle of the president’s precision medicine initiative®.”
in january 2015, president barack obama announced the precision medicine initiative in his state of the union address. through advances in research, technology and policies that empower patients, the initiative will enable a new era of medicine in which researchers, providers and patients work together to develop individualized care.
the june conference was hosted at the white house and comprised a diverse group of patients, researchers, clinicians, designers and technologists, as well as experts in law, policy and citizen science. it was important for the gathering to include a voice from pharmacy, clauson said, as 70 percent of all illnesses involve medication as part of the treatment.
clauson, who has consulted for the world health organization and served as a reviewer for the centers for disease control and prevention’s national center for public health informatics, has also worked with stanford medicine x, an annual stanford university conference on the intersection of medicine and emerging technologies, in the past.
his own research on patients’ medication adherence in digital and mobile health formats has involved some of the concepts advocated in precision medicine, primarily patient participation and leveraging relevant technology.
“patients were involved in the research team that developed the questions to assess progress, they helped us write the informed consent form and they even helped us write the research protocol, helping us determine the research priorities for the study,” he said.
“in one study we used text messages as a way to assess patient medication adherence, and the patients on our team helped with the wording, such as how to make it more engaging and the best times to send messages. to have firsthand knowledge of a patient at our fingertips was really helpful.”
clauson interacted with many leaders in health care at the june conference including representatives from the world parkinson’s coalition, various major pharmaceutical companies, the british medical journal, the new england journal of medicine, apple, johns hopkins’ the hub @ sibley and national patient groups.
among the conference speakers and coordinators were several leaders of the white house office of science technology and policy including u.s. chief technology officer megan smith, chief data scientist dj patil, precision medicine initiative project manager stephanie devaney and senior policy advisor on health and health it claudia williams.
“at the end of a very full day, claudia williams solicited a room of extremely busy people for their needs and offers to help advance what had been discussed during the workshop relative to partnering with participants and precision medicine,” clauson said. “i was astounded to see how many of these luminaries offered their time, expertise and resources for these causes.”