The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care - Hardcover

Eric J. Topol, M.D., is professor of innovative medicine and the director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla, California. Trained at Johns Hopkins University, he conducted one of the first trials of a genetically engineered protein for treating heart attacks, and was the founder of the world's first cardiovascular gene bank at the Cleveland Clinic. He lives with his family in La Jolla, California.

Misha Angrist, Assistant Professor, Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy, and author of Here is a Human Being
Eric Topol is that rare physician willing to challenge the orthodoxies of his guild. He recognizes that in the U.S., health care business-as-usual is unsustainable.  But he does not despair. He bears witness to the rise of Homo digitus and the promise it holds to upend the inefficiencies and dysfunction so entrenched in clinical medicine. The Creative Destruction of Medicine is a timely tour de force. It is a necessary heresy.”
 
George Church, Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School
What happens when the super-convergence of smart phones further combines with million-fold lower-cost genomics and diverse wearable sensors? The riveting answer leads compellingly to a call to activism not only for medical care providers, but all patients and everyone looking for the next disruptive' economic revolution. This future is closer than most of us would have imagined before seeing it laid out so clearly. A must-read.”
 

Arnold S. Relman, New York Review of Books
As an introduction for the lay reader to the sophisticated digital technology now being applied to medical care, and as an explanation of the rapidly advancing science of medical genetics and the new revelations from the sequencing of the human genome, Topol's book is a tour de force.”

Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

“[A]n eye opening account of why conventional medicine is doomed.... [C]ompelling stuff.... [T]he book provides an excellent summary of the current state of medical genetics and how fast it is progressing, with examples that may surprise even those working in medicine.” Wall Street Journal“The Creative Destruction of Medicine—an allusion to economist Joseph Schumpeter’s description of ‘creative destruction’ as an engine of business innovation—is a venture capitalist’s delight, describing dozens of medical technologies that show great promise. The book also provides colorful anecdotes about Dr. Topol’s own sampling of these products, as both a doctor and stand-in patient.... [The book’s] most important contributions are in portraying how medical innovation will coalesce to change clinical practice and what the coming changes mean for today’s policy debates.... In Dr. Topol’s vision, innovation that enables real-time diagnosis and personalized treatments is a certainty, though not because reluctant or ‘sclerotic’ doctors accept it or because Washington wills it into being. A seductive technology that works like a dream and improves lives will set off a consumer clamor, whether the new tool is an iPhone 4S or an implantable blood-sugar meter.” 

“Eric Topol offers a new and intriguing perspective on how the intersections of medicine and technology could further transform the delivery of healthcare and the role of a patient. He advocates for a future world of medicine where informed consumers are in the driver seat and control their own healthcare based on genomic information and real-time data obtained through nanosensors and wireless technology.” Eric Silfen, M.D., Senior Vice-President and Chief Medical Officer, Philips Healthcare“In an upbeat, comprehensive volume, Dr. Topol has woven the prevailing technological undercurrents of the post-PC world—its power of many; its Gucci of gadgets; its cloud ecosystem; its ‘Arab Spring’ of apps; and its ubiquitous, calm computing—with the disruptive innovations of biomedicine, to create a compelling account of how this bio-digital transformation will hasten personalization of the highest quality of medical care.” Greg Lucier, CEO, Life Technologies“Dr. Topol is the top thought leader in medicine today, with exceptional vision for how its future can be rebooted. This book will create and catalyze a movement for the individualization and democratization of medicine—and undoubtedly promote better health care” 

Reed Tuckson, M.D., Executive Vice President and Chief of Medical Affairs, UnitedHealth Group
Eric Topol has written an extraordinarily important book at just the right moment. Drawing upon a unique and impressive array of convergent expertise in medical research, clinical medicine, consumer and health technological advancements, and health policy, Dr. Topol opens the door for an essential discussion of old challenges viewed through an innovative lens. In the context of increasingly unaffordable health care costs, suboptimal quality of care delivery, a tsunami of preventable chronic illness, and new accountabilities for consumer's health choices and behaviors, this book helps  all of us to think about solutions in new and exciting ways!”
 
Juan Enriquez, Managing Director, Excel Venture Management, and author As the Future Catches You
Much of the wealth created over the last decades arose out of a brutal transition from ABC's to digital code. While creating some of the world's most valuable companies, this process also upended whole industries and even countries. Now medicine, health care, and life sciences are undergoing the same transition. And, again, enormous wealth will be created and destroyed. This book is a road map of what is about to happen.”
 

Dean Ornish, M.D., Founder and President, Preventive Medicine Research Institute, and author of The Spectrum
“Eric Topol is the perfect author for this book. He has a unique understanding of both genomics and wireless medicine and has a remarkable track record as a charismatic pioneer, visionary, and change agent in medicine. I’m sure this book will reach a very large number of people with information that can both empower and help transform their lives for the better.” Nature“The digital age opens up the possibility of a new type of medicine in which an individual’s health data are digitized using wearable sensors, smartphone apps and genome information, writes geneticist and cardiologist Eric Topol. With this wealth of data, medical interventions could be tailored to our uniqueness. Topol covers failures in patient information; what might happen if genomics, imaging, sensors and better health information were to converge; and the potential pitfalls of this brave new medical world.” New Scientist

J. Craig Venter, Chairman and President, J. Craig Venter Institute
Our sequencing of the human genome eleven years ago was the beginning of the individualized medicine revolution, a revolution that cannot happen without digitized personal phenotype information. Eric Topol provides a path forward using your digitized genome, remote sensing devices and social networking to place the educated at the center of medicine.”
 
Omar Ishrak, Chairman and CEO of Medtronic
Eric Topol provides an excellent and pragmatic view of the U.S. healthcare system from a patient's perspective. He then offers, through numerous examples, an exciting vision for the future ... when technology can be used to dramatically improve the quality of care and reduce cost at the same time. The Creative Destruction of Medicine is a highly informative and enjoyable book, which truly triggers the reader's imagination as to what is possible”
 

Elias Zerhouni, M.D., President, Global R&D, Sanofi and former director, National Institutes of Health
If we keep practicing medicine as we know it today, healthcare will become an unbearable burden. We are in a real race between healthcare innovation and the resistance to change of the medical system. In a comprehensive and well researched tour de force, Eric Topol, always a clear and uncompromising thought leader of his generation, challenges us to imagine the revolutionary potential of a world where medical information no longer belongs to a few and can be automatically collected from the many to greatly improve healthcare for all. This is a must read!”

Kirkus Reviews

Topol weaves useful knowledge about how to evaluate the choices open to patients into this exciting account of the revolutionary changes we can expect.”

William R. Brody, M.D., Ph.D., President, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies
“The Creative Destruction of Medicine is an engaging look into how the discoveries in genetics and biology will change the landscape of medicine. Along the way, Dr. Topol provides a fascinating compendium of stories about the shortcomings of medicine as it is currently practiced and how the revolutionary discoveries coming since the first sequencing of the human genome a decade ago will shape the delivery of healthcare in the 21st century.”

What happens when you combine cellular phone technology with the cellular aberrations in disease? Or create a bridge between the digital revolution with the medical revolution? How will minute biological sensors alter the way we treat lethal illnesses, such as heart attacks or cancer? This marvelous book by Eric Topol, a leading cardiologist, gene hunter and medical thinker, answers not just these questions, but many many more. Topol's analysis draws us to the very frontlines of medicine, and leaves us with a view of a landscape that is both foreign and daunting. He manages to recount this story in simple, lucid language resulting in an enthralling and important book.” 

Atul Gawande, M.D., author of The Checklist Manifesto
Dr. Eric Topol is an extraordinary doctor. He's started a leading medical school, identified the first genes to underlie development of heart disease, led major medical centers, and been a pioneer of wireless medicine. But he is also a remarkable communicator one of the few top-flight scientists in medicine to be able to genuinely connect with the public. He was, for example, the first physician researcher to question the safety of Vioxx and unlike most who raise safety questions, actually succeed in bringing the concerns to public attention. I have known and admired Dr. Topol for a long time. I recommend him highly.”
 

Paul E. Jacobs, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO, Qualcomm Incorporated“Dr. Topol believes that medicine, catalyzed by extraordinary innovation that exploits digital information, is about to go through its biggest shakeup in history. His newest book calls for a ‘jailbreak’ from the ideas of the past. In the next phase of medicine, powerful digital tools including mobile sensors and advanced processors will transform our understanding of the individual, enabling creative ‘mash-ups’ of data that will spark entirely new discoveries and spawn ultra-personalized health and fitness solutions. And with over 5.7 billion mobile connections worldwide, the mobile technology platform will have a major impact on that vision—leading to what Dr. Topol describes as nothing less than a ‘reboot’ of the health care system. Qualcomm, and its partners all around the world, are working to bring wireless innovations to market that will contribute to the solution. And we share Dr. Topol’s view that individual consumers have the opportunity, and the power, to increase the pace of the titanic change that’s coming.” John Martin, Chairman and CEO, Gilead Sciences