Geisinger President and CEO David T. Feinberg, M.D., MBA, announced on 5/6/18 that the Pennsylvania-based health system is expanding its successful genomics program beyond the realm of research and into everyday, preventive care. The Geisinger Health System (GHS) is a physician-led health care system of northeastern and central Pennsylvania with headquarters located in Danville, Pennsylvania. Geisinger serves more than 3 million residents throughout 45 counties and has over 30,000 employees.

"Understanding the genome warning signals of every patient will be an essential part of wellness planning and health management," Dr. Feinberg told the crowd at the HLTH Conference in Las Vegas. "Geisinger patients will be able to work with their family physician to modify their lifestyle and minimize risks that may be revealed. This forecasting will allow us to provide truly anticipatory health care instead of the responsive sick care that has long been the industry default across the nation."

Geisinger is considered a leader in precision health with the success of its MyCode Community Health Initiative, which has enrolled more than 200,000 patient-participants and is already delivering medically relevant results to participants and their primary care doctors. More than 500 Geisinger MyCode participants have received clinical reports telling them that they have a genomic variant that increases their risk of early cancers or heart disease, allowing their doctors to detect and treat these conditions before any clinical symptoms become present.

"Sequencing the known functional parts of the genome for our patients is becoming a clinical reality, not just as a diagnostic test for patients who present with particular symptoms, but for all patients in the communities we serve," said David Ledbetter, Ph.D., Geisinger executive vice president and chief scientific officer. "As we sequence the exomes of our patients and learn even more about particular genome variants and their impact on different health conditions, we predict that as many as 10 to 15 percent of our patients will benefit."

Geisinger's clinical DNA sequencing efforts will launch with a 1,000-patient pilot program within the next six months. The clinical DNA program will then spread throughout Geisinger's expansive geographic footprint across Pennsylvaniaand southern New Jersey.