Kenneth L. Davis, MD, imagines a day when our great-grandchildren will marvel at the fact that anyone ever died of cancer, or that the human life expectancy was just 79 years
A world without cancer or other severe diseases may seem impossible to conceive. But back in 1852, when Mount Sinai Hospital was founded, no one could have imagined that doctors would be able to perform total straightforward removal of a brain tumor. Or use robots to perform procedures such as removing cancer from the head, neck or prostate.
Yet these advances and many more were made possible as Mount Sinai fulfilled its mission to provide compassionate care to everyone regardless of their background or economic status by developing and adopting the most advanced therapeutic approaches available anywhere.
“For more than 160 years, we have dedicated ourselves to being a world-class medical center for anyone in need,” said Dr. Kenneth L. Davis, president and CEO of the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. “Ensuring that the communities we serve have full access to the diagnostics, therapeutics and medicine of tomorrow. That legacy informs everything we do, and building on it is the challenge I take on every day.”
Through the years, Mount Sinai has consistently challenged conventions in health care delivery to increase access to exceptional care in the many communities it serves. In doing so, it has helped shift the profession from a doctor-centric model to one that is patient-centric, with a focus on holistic and community-based efforts that reduce hospital visits and readmission rates.
Having established new models for delivery of health care, Mount Sinai is now turning its attention to leading the next frontier of medicine: biological medicine.
“This revolution began 15 years ago with the mapping of the human genome; we’re now at the point where we can decode anyone’s genome cost-effectively,” Davis explained. “We can harness the full potential of genomics and data science to explore questions about disease pathophysiology, therapeutics, and diagnostics for the benefit of patients at Mount Sinai and around the world.”
The Hamilton and Amabel James Center for Artificial Intelligence and Human Health will explore many of these questions. Scheduled to launch in 2021, it will be the first center in New York City to integrate artificial intelligence, data science and genomic screening to advance clinical practice and patient outcomes.
We see the potential of artificial intelligence to transform the care that patients receive,” Davis said. “Through this center, we are creating a hub where our talented researchers can collaborate in unprecedented ways and bring forward innovative ideas and technologies.”
“We are living through an incredible time in medicine when we have computers and artificial intelligence redefining what is possible. What drives us at Mount Sinai is how we can position our medical center to harvest the fruit of this revolution for all mankind.” — Dr. Kenneth L. Davis
Mount Sinai also identifies biological targets to treat diseases through initiatives such as the Human Immune Monitoring Center at the Icahn School of Medicine. Using proprietary technologies and platforms, the center seeks to better understand the role of the immune system in a range of diseases and use those findings to develop new therapeutic approaches.
These research activities are facilitated in part by Mount Sinai’s diverse patient population, specifically DNA and blood samples within our BioMe biobank program, an electronic health record-linked clinical care biobank. Consisting of samples from more than 50,000 participants from diverse ancestries and characterized by a broad spectrum of biomedical traits, the program integrates patient genomic information with electronic health records for discovery research and clinical care implementation.
“One strength that distinguishes us from other centers is that we have the necessary diversity to identify genetic abnormalities and obtain data on therapeutics in a way that is reflective of the full spectrum of humanity,” Davis said.
Even as biological medicine holds the potential to advance health care in previously unimaginable ways, other factors need to be addressed to ensure all Mount Sinai patients see the full benefits of this technological revolution. Davis is increasingly focused on opportunities to integrate social services with medical treatment for improved outcomes, resulting in several partnerships and pilot programs to achieve that goal.
“The main determinants of health care outcomes are factors such as nutrition, housing and employment,” Davis continued. “By taking steps to help strengthen our social safety net, we are ensuring that our patients can take full advantage of the medical advances made possible by science.”
Ultimately, these efforts to advance health care delivery come back to the mission Mount Sinai was founded on: providing leading-edge care to everyone.
“Each new model, initiative, and approach we introduce brings us one step closer to that goal,” Davis said. “We will continue to innovate and develop templates that make it possible to imagine a future in which people live long and healthy lives that are free of complex disease.”
