Sanford Health has received $125 million gift from philanthropist T. Denny Sanford to create a genomic initiative for internal medicine. Sanford Health calls this new program Imagenetics.
Health officials claim integrating genomic medicine will improve the diagnosis and treatment of adults. Sanford Health President and CEO Kelby Krabbenhoft says this $125 million gift keeps healthcare in the region moving forward.
"In healthcare today there’s just not enough money at the end of the day of providing care to sick people for health systems, certainly research organizations and others, to get this done. And that’s what causes it to go slow, that’s what causes it sometimes to stop," Krabbenhoft says.
Krabbenhoft says genetic testing will begin later this year. Dr. Eric Larson is a Board-certified Internal Medicine Physician at Sanford. He says working on genetic medical advancement is the future of healthcare.
"Sanford Imaginetics will reveal these individual nuances and arm physicians with the information and multidisciplinary team required to initiate treatment programs, which will result in fewer medication side affects, higher quality of care and ultimately improved health and quality of life," Larson says.
Imagenetics will have facilities in all major Sanford markets in the region. Sanford Health will also partner with Augustana College and the University of South Dakota to develop new academic programs to help teach genomic medicine to the next generations of medical students. Dr. Mary Nettleman is the Dean of Sanford’s School of Medicine of USD. She says genetics can be confusing at times but it’s all about trying to simplify the process.
"I like to think of our genes as the keys on a piano and in truth each of us is issued the same piano. Our DNA is very similar one to another, almost identical," Nettleman says. "What’s different about us is how we activate and deactivate our genes, how our genes work together, how they’re turned on and turned off like pressing the keys to create chords and to create music."
Sanford health has received nearly a billion dollars from T. Denny Sanford since 2007.
