Knowledge to Action: Enhancing Patient Care through Precision Health
Every day, clinicians treat patients diagnosed with the same diseases, and prescribe standardised medications. However, treatment outcomes can vary significantly, even when diagnoses and treatment plans are identical. Precision medicine approaches offer an opportunity for clinicians to move beyond this “one-size-fits-all” approach to care by tailoring care to patients for better health outcomes.
Precision medicine empowers clinicians to make more targeted medical decisions and clinical interventions, manage disease progression—based on genetic make-up of patients. However, only the basics of genetics and precision health are currently covered in the current medical school curriculum.
To facilitate a deeper understanding of precision health among clinicians, Precision Health Research, Singapore (PRECISE) partnered with the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine) Department of Biochemistry in 2024 to offer the Master of Science in Precision Health and Medicine (MScPHM) programme.
Finding Answers to Improve Clinical Outcomes
Driven to deepen their knowledge of precision medicine, Doctors Tan Yi Fan, Gerard Low and Reuven Cheng were among the inaugural cohort to complete the Masters programme. “Experiencing firsthand the complexities of treating and managing chronic diseases such as cancers and cardiometabolic disorders in clinical settings has sparked my interest to better understand how patients with the same condition would respond so differently to similar treatments—and how genomics and artificial intelligence (AI) can potentially help deliver more precise and personalised care,” said Yi Fan.
Echoing Yi Fan’s sentiments, Gerard said, “As doctors, we are always asking ourselves what more we can do for our patients—then comes the realisation that while Singapore is keen to pursue precision medicine as the future of healthcare, there is still a gap in translating scientific knowledge into clinical practice. The way I see it, it’s only a matter of time before precision medicine literacy becomes essential for healthcare practitioners.”
Adopting a Data Driven Approach to Treatments
While Yi Fan, Gerard and Reuven fulfil the admission prerequisites with their medical backgrounds, its interdisciplinary nature requires them to also acquire foundational knowledge in quantitative sciences.
Reuven elaborated, “The programme has provided me with a deeper appreciation for precision medicine. It goes beyond our current practices of diagnosing patients’ conditions and prescribing corresponding medications and dosages. Instead, we can leverage AI and machine learning to process and analyse genomic big data to extract meaningful insights that can directly influence patient care. This approach is transformative—and only possible when we bring machine learning, medicine and genetics together.”
Gerard, who recently started his training in the ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) specialisation, elaborated, “In ENT, patients undergo various treatments and often require long-term follow-up—a lot of patient data is generated in the process. If we can put this data to good use and research better interventions, we not only can offer patients more tailored treatments, but also improve clinical outcomes.”
Yi Fan added, “I agree—one of the biggest revelations I had was the dynamism of precision medicine. Apart from its potential to transform the entire patient journey from early detection to diagnosis and long-term management, the opportunity to prevent disease and advance the health of an entire population with precision medicine is especially exciting.”
Notably, knowledge and insights derived from population-scale genomic data are necessary but insufficient to transform healthcare. Reuven said, “The idea of precision medicine is increasingly garnering interest among the medical fraternity. But just like ChatGPT when it first emerged, precision medicine remains a black box to many. There’s a lot of enthusiasm about its ability to transform healthcare—but not a lot of clarity in terms of direction.”
Advocates for Change
Hoping to contribute towards the adoption of precision medicine in healthcare settings, Yi Fan and Reuven collaborated with their lecturers, Associate Professor Kenneth Ban and Associate Professor Caroline Lee on a book titled Precision Medicine for Healthcare Practitioners, as a capstone project for their MScPHM programme.
The book is structured in three parts. The first introduces key concepts and distinguishes precision health and medicine from traditional approaches, including the roles of ‘omics’ , AI and data science, . In the second part, the focus shifts to specific applications, showcasing its therapeutic potential across diverse medical domains. The final part outlines the social, ethical and legal considerations involved in the implementation of precision health and medicine. It also reflects on the future, speculating developments and challenges while pointing out opportunities for integrating precision approaches into clinical practice.
“Yi Fan and I decided on this project because we realised there’s a gap in the current system. Even as national efforts like the National Precision Medicine programme progresses and public interest grows, clinicians often lack the tools to integrate precision health and medicine into their practice. But if we can create a resource that introduces healthcare practitioners to what precision health and medicine are, why they matter, where they can be applied, and how they can transform medicine—we can help bridge this gap,” Reuven shared.
Yi Fan continued, “The body of research in precision medicine is growing—but for patients to benefit from all this work, doctors play a pivotal role in ensuring that these findings are meaningfully translated into either viable products or clinical practice. We hope that our book can help doctors make better decisions on treatment plans, delivering more tailored care for patients. Taking it a step further, they can also educate patients—and empower them to take greater ownership of their own health.”
Choosing to advocate for precision medicine in a different way, Gerard envisioned that he can lead by being an early adopter of precision health and medicine in the ENT practice. He said, “Although my current training in ENT is primarily surgery-based, I believe my knowledge in precision medicine will enable me to gain better insights into the treatment plans my healthcare colleagues offer patients, the complications that might arise from surgery or medicine use, and—more importantly—some certainty in treatment outcomes.”
“It takes a whole village of people who are knowledgeable and willing for precision medicine to realise its true potential, become a staple at our clinics—and so ubiquitous that it is the standard of care among clinicians,” concluded Gerard.