Precision Medicine Requires Data Storage, Infrastructure Upgrades

Precision medicine will require significant investments in data storage, infrastructure, and security systems in the coming years to achieve its full potential, a recent report by the California Precision Medicine Advisory Committee concluded. Data storage and infrastructure must keep pace with the demand to store, manage, and share patient data, which is expected to increase for each patient from several gigabytes to terabytes of generated data soon, stressed the report. The commission was set up by outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown in 2017. The report acknowledged that there have been advances in data storage and infrastructure since the early 2000, most importantly, cloud computing. “With the expansion of cloud-based and hybrid networks, distributed computing is now available providing better support for collaborative productivity tools. Trends show that health systems are increasingly migrating to software and cloud-based solutions to store and protect data,” the commission related.