Precision Medicine

Pre­ci­sion med­i­cine is a tai­lored approach to health that incor­po­rates an individual’s genet­ic make-up, envi­ron­men­tal, and lifestyle fac­tors. Pre­ci­sion med­i­cine has the poten­tial to trans­form health­care, pro­vid­ing improved patient out­comes, enhanced expe­ri­ences, reduced vari­a­tion in care, and opti­mised resource utilisation. 

CEIH is ded­i­cat­ed to cre­at­ing a uni­fied approach to pre­ci­sion med­i­cine across our state, with a vision to cre­ate a health­care ecosys­tem that lever­ages pre­ci­sion med­i­cine to deliv­er per­son­alised, effec­tive, and effi­cient care to all. To work towards this vision, we have devel­oped a Pre­ci­sion Med­i­cine Blue­print to sup­port the advance­ment of health­care in South Australia. 

The blue­print iden­ti­fies five key pri­or­i­ty areas: 

• Sup­port­ing Infra­struc­ture and Ser­vice Mod­els: Infra­struc­ture (phys­i­cal and soft i.e gov­er­nance and strat­e­gy) that sup­ports sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Ser­vice mod­els that embed and opti­mise stan­dard­ised care delivery. 

• Build­ing a Skilled Work­force: Build­ing capac­i­ty and capa­bil­i­ty to sup­port appli­ca­tion of pre­ci­sion med­i­cine through train­ing, edu­ca­tion and stan­dards of care. 

• Enhanc­ing Data and Dig­i­tal Health: Con­nect­ed, inte­grat­ed data sys­tems with sup­port­ing infra­struc­ture and sys­tem inter­op­er­abil­i­ty to opti­mise deliv­ery of care and machine learn­ing operations. 

• Dri­ving Research, Inno­va­tion and Trans­la­tion: An evolv­ing health sys­tem that val­ues research and inno­va­tion with a seam­less inter­face between research, eval­u­a­tion and health­care delivery. 

• Engag­ing the Com­mu­ni­ty: An informed pub­lic that guides the appli­ca­tion of pre­ci­sion med­i­cine and is sup­port­ed to enhance edu­ca­tion and health lit­er­a­cy in pre­ci­sion medicine. 

To achieve this vision and progress pri­or­i­ty areas requires a coor­di­nat­ed and col­lab­o­ra­tive effort. Our role is to facil­i­tate col­lab­o­ra­tion by bring­ing togeth­er diverse stake­hold­ers to share knowl­edge, iden­ti­fy chal­lenges, gaps, and oppor­tu­ni­ties, and devel­op strate­gies to advance pre­ci­sion med­i­cine statewide. 

Our focus

• Under­stand­ing the cur­rent land­scape of pre­ci­sion med­i­cine in our state 

• Con­nect­ing stake­hold­ers to cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for collaboration 

• Pro­gress­ing pri­or­i­ty areas by refin­ing and pri­ori­tis­ing key sys­tem focus areas 

• Fos­ter­ing part­ner­ships and knowl­edge exchange to accel­er­ate implementation 

Cur­rent Ini­tia­tives

CEIH is active­ly engaged in sev­er­al col­lab­o­ra­tive projects to advance pre­ci­sion med­i­cine in South Aus­tralia. These ini­tia­tives include: 

• Enhanc­ing data inte­gra­tion for mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary decision-making. 

• Stream­lin­ing genom­ic test­ing processes. 

• Sup­port­ing work­force education. 

• Devel­op­ing statewide clin­i­cal pathways. 

• Estab­lish­ing reg­istries and assess­ing spe­cialised therapies. 

• Cre­at­ing frame­works to reduce vari­a­tion in care. 

Through clin­i­cal net­works like the Can­cer and Genom­ic Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­works, CEIH fos­ters col­lab­o­ra­tion and clin­i­cal lead­er­ship to dri­ve the imple­men­ta­tion of pre­ci­sion med­i­cine across the state. Our efforts also include con­sumer engage­ment strate­gies to ensure pub­lic involve­ment in pre­ci­sion med­i­cine applications.

How to Get Involved

To read more about our approach, see the Pre­ci­sion Med­i­cine Blue­print. We wel­come con­tact from any­one work­ing on projects that con­tribute to advanc­ing pre­ci­sion med­i­cine implementation.

Read More About Our Work

• Germline test­ing

• Patient Report­ed Mea­sures Pro­gram

• Genom­ic con­sent

• Work­force well­be­ing

• Cer­ti­fied Health Infor­mati­cian Aus­trala­sia

• Repro­duc­tive car­ri­ers screen­ing

• CAR‑T cell ther­a­py

• Gen Med

• Can­cer Nav­i­ga­tion

• SA Can­cer Plan

• Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­works

Have a question?

Please email ceih@​sa.​gov.​au.