Systems medicine for the delivery of better healthcare Services- International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences (IUPESM) perspective

Abstract

Medicine has ever been evolving in accordance with the clinical needs and the knowledge and philosophical attitude of the healthcare practitioners and service providers and at the same time influenced by geographical specific social, economic, political and environmental factors. The process is primarily aimed at improving human health through better access to quality medicine. One of the key indicators for quality medicine is clinical outcome, which is often determined by how early and accurate a disease is diagnosed and its staging determined and the efficacy of the clinical modalities used in treatment and post-treatment management of the patient. Biomedical engineers and medical physicists have played an important role in the development and operation of global healthcare services. One of their important contributions is in the research and development of better and more effective medical technologies in meeting clinical needs. They have close collaboration with healthcare professionals and medical scientists in development of the better tools and equipment to solve clinical challenges.A major limitation in today's medicine is that the uniqueness of the biological properties and conditions of the individual patients are not properly accounted for when making disease diagnosis or medical intervention. The large variation in patient response to treatments observed in the clinics, particularly in cancer patients, indicates that current medical technologies and the associated physical and chemical interventional procedures alone cannot resolve all the clinical problems satisfactorily. A better understanding of the biology of the diseases at the genetic and DNA level is essentially required in order to be able to develop the optimal preventive and therapeutic modalities.Current biological models are considered inadequate in fully explaining the multi-factorial nature and complex behavior of many human disorders and in predicting their response to the various forms of medical intervention. There is a need to develop a more systematic biological approach to address clinical problems. Systems medicine [1-3] is one of the approaches or concepts based on knowledge of systems biology being developed to guide treatment and prevention of diseases. Systems biology involves the analysis and understanding of the cellular and pathogenetic mechanisms and pattern of disease progression and remission, treatment responses and adverse effects at the individual patient level. The approach is aimed at providing the biological foundation or model needed by medical professionals for interpretation of biological and physical data collected from clinical investigations of the individual patients for making early disease diagnosis well before appearance of any symptoms or physical abnormalities. The biological information can also be used to guide any needed medical intervention and to predict and optimize treatment outcome on a personalized basis. Systems medicine, when realized will likely make a paradigm shift in medical practice and...