Democratizing Cancer Diagnostics and Therapeutics Through Precision Medicine

Health care expenditures are increasing at an alarming rate in fee-for-service health systems like those in the U.S.; however, health outcomes are not. In less resourced parts of the world, lack of access to modern health care is the primary challenge. In both instances, there is a critical need for disruptive innovations that will change the way patients move through the health care system and, ultimately, benefit from it. Successful innovations that disrupt the status quo will ideally result in decreased health care expenditures and improved health outcomes by reducing the cost of existing technologies and infrastructure and eliminating the requirement for skilled intervention, thereby increasing access and consolidating touchpoints to eliminate potentially unnecessary visits as well as loss to follow up. With upcoming transitions to value-based care health systems, where patient outcomes and expenditure are considered in the reimbursement model, these types of technologies will only grow in importance. Here, we show three case studies illustrating these concepts in the cervical and breast cancer care cascades and highlight the implications of these innovations in the context of both local and global health. Democratizing health care by developing technologies that facilitate a transition to a value-based health care system is desperately needed to simultaneously reduce expenditures while improving outcomes.