Wellness Wednesday is sponsored by Intermountain Health
You won't see Doctor Benjamin Horne in the exam room, but his work may help your doctor understand you better.
Horne is a scientist determined to harness the vast trove of data in a system like Intermountain Health to find patterns.
Hone received a multi-million dollar grant from he National Institutes of Health to find patterns showing the way a heart condition has impacted patients most similar to you.
“We look at people who have had problems before historically, in the Intermountain Health system, and create these statistical models to project for other patients in the future, what’s going to happen to them,” said Horne.
It sounds like common sense, but not even someone as smart as your doctor has a brain that can memorize millions of medical records, the system that ties them, and relate it all to your complex body.
Horne wants to put the power of all of that data into your doctor's hands.
“To a great extent, the human mind can't manage all those pieces of information at the same time, and so physicians are doing this on a on a limited basis at this point. But what we want to do is find all of the pieces of information and have them in this model that the computer can calculate behind the scenes without having to burden the physician with it and then provide them the information and they'll be able to use that going forward,” said Horne.
The condition Horne and his colleagues at Intermountain will focus on for the next four years is called mitral valve prolapse, also known as MVP. This common and potentially fatal condition affects millions of Americans.
“The mitral valve is a valve that allows blood to go from the left atrium into the left ventricle. The left side of the heart pumps the blood out to the body. You can imagine if the blood starts going the wrong direction, you’re not getting out the blood to the rest of the body,” said Horne.
Have you ever tried to inflate something big like a raft and the nozzle on your air pump just doesn't seal with the intake? The more pressure you apply, the more air shoots right back out.
It’s an annoyance that might spoil your day. But it's easy to understand and fix with the right resources.
Your body on the other hand, is far more complex.
The heart, not visible to the eye and impacted by factors from genetics to diet, to environment, to personal history and current demands.
Doctor Horne wants your cardiologist to know right away how mitral valve prolapse has progressed in thousands of cases similar to yours.
“So if we can get them examined earlier and treated earlier, then we can prevent some of the problems and they can have a longer healthier life,” said Horne.
Doctor Horn has his PHD in genetic epidemiology and he wants to make sure we know he is working with cardiologists at Intermountain Health on this study.
