HHS Report:
Health IT, Genetic Medicine To Personalize Care

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt on Wednesday released the first report on the development of more personalized health care and the influential role that health IT will play in the effort, Healthcare IT News reports.

The report, called "Personalized Health Care: Opportunities, Pathways, Resources," offers a long-term plan for creating more customized treatment for patients through the use of genetic information and health IT (Monegain, Healthcare IT News , 9/19).

Personalized health care "will be founded upon vast amounts of information that will be readily accessible at clinics and hospital bedsides," the report states.

The report also states the full potential of individualized care "cannot be realized unless electronic systems, clinical databases and knowledge repositories employ interoperable standards and definitions."

HHS predicts that a new doctor-patient relationship will result from the move to personalized care. "Interactive systems will allow patients to query electronically about health choices. Patients will have the opportunity to become more health literate and take more responsibility for their own health care," according to the report (Ferris, Government Health IT , 9/19).

The report highlights opportunities that science and technology will provide for personalized care, such as:

• Predicting an individual's susceptibility to disease and specific preventive tools;
  
• Detecting the onset of disease at an early stage and preempting progression; and
  
• Providing evidence-based best practices at the point of care ( Health Data Management , 9/19).