A concept that looks like it is catching on a hot trend in today’s wellbeing-aware world: personalized medicine. A new approach to healthcare called personalized medicine takes into account the differences in all our genes, something that helps explain why a drug that works for some people doesn’t do as much for others, as well as our lifestyles and our own surroundings on how best to help you. Precision medicine has an unprecedented opportunity to change medicine as we know it by allowing us to prevent and diagnose disease earlier and to develop more effective and less expensive therapies which should lead to more and high-quality patient care in a timely manner. Here we outline what personalized medicine will mean for the future of healthcare.
Understanding Personalized Medicine
Personalized medicine (also known as precision medicine and individualized medicine) is a model of care delivery that defines an interdisciplinary approach to tailor care to patients not only as populations but also as individuals. Personalized medicine that acknowledges, not all people are alike, but everyone may respond uniquely to treatment. The medicine company combines the principles of precision medicine with numerous genomics, big data, and digital health tools, that identifies the root cause of disease, and then increase the success rate of therapeutic and avoid trial and error.
Genomics and Precision Medicine
New tools account for their genome (everyone-one-of-every-single unit) with life-changing specificity and yield useful information about what would happen if they were given a medication, or steps we can take to prevent disease, or how healthy they are. Robert MacArthur, MD, who is interested in the personalized medicine movement, acknowledges the game-changing role that genomics can play in the future of medical decisions and patient care.
Tailoring Treatment to the Individual
Personalized medicine aims to develop treatment and management plans for individual patients while taking into consideration that person’s particular nature and biology. This was made possible by the capacity to choose, according to genetic patterns, if certain medication was almost certain to be effective based on the patient’s genetic make-up, lifestyle, and disease history. It can mean, for example, that oncologists can identify the therapies geared towards killing cancer cells and leaving healthy tissue alone, which reduces side effects and increases the effectiveness of the treatment. For oncology, one of the focus areas, this could be molecular profiling of tumors.
Predictive Analytics and Risk Stratification
The predictive analytics and risk stratification algorithms can feed in to determine the likelihood of a disease. This is likely predisposed to, hence, making it an element of personalized medicine. Healthcare providers can identify patterns and trends signaling increased risk from disease, via analysis of large data sets that contain genetic, clinical, and environmental data. This enables timely intervention and health promotion, which could prevent disease or reduce its impact on an individual.
Digital Health Technologies and Remote Monitoring
Digitization is also pushing ahead of personalized medicine with digital health technologies as well. Patients can use wearable devices, mobile apps, and remote monitoring tools to measure their health metrics in real-time to help feed information to develop personalized plans for that patient. A continuous glucose monitor, as one example, can read blood sugar levels of the user and alter the insulin dose instantly, which leads to improved glycemic control and ultimately better health.
Challenges and Considerations
Though the potential for personalized medicine is vast, it is a field fraught with challenges and questions that need to be answered. These questions will move from data privacy and security, to building regulatory frameworks that guard for responsible and ethical use of genomic data, and guaranteeing access to personalized care for every patient, irrespective of socioeconomic status and geography. Robert MacArthur, MD, urges the adoption of policies and practices for responsible use of personal genomics that protect both the privacy of patients and support fairness in healthcare.
Embracing the Promise of Personalized Medicine
It fundamentally transforms our health sector and translates the concepts of prevention, diagnostics, and treatment in an entirely new way. Personalized medicine offers the opportunity to provide more targeted care based on the unique characteristics of each patient, with the goal of maximizing patient health benefits while reducing costs and also increasing our understanding of human health and disease. Robert MacArthur, MD, contends that the union between personalized medicine and a patient-centric world will propel advances that further personalize medicine and truly enable prevention, proactive intervention, and optimal clinical management for the whole globe. With continued enablement through genomics, digital health technologies, and data analytics, personalized medicine will indisputably be a dominant force in healthcare moving forward.
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