The Health and Human Services has released a second report from the Initiative on Personalized Health Care. In this report, the topic is potential of genetics and molecular-level medicine for improving quality and cost-effectiveness of health care.

The report is entitled, "Personalized Health Care: Pioneers, Partnerships, Progress," has information from ten institutions where personalized health care techniques are beginning to be used. There are also seven commissioned papers reviewing issues in personalized health care from different perspectives in the health care sector.

"These sample case studies reflect a broad scope of approaches that are already being tried, as well as partnerships for achieving higher levels of effectiveness and personalization in health care," HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt writes in a "Prologue" chapter in the report.
According to the HHS website, personalized health care reflects treatment that is "increasingly differentiated between patients based on variations in their individual biology." The site suggests as an example the differences in metabolism or other factors that can cause a medication to be effective with some individuals, but not others. Measuring the individual variations in patients before prescribing, HHS says, means medications could be used more safely, effectively and at lower cost.

The use of genomics and biomarkers and molecular medicine should also help detect diseases before symptoms appear, and enable treatments to delay or preempt the disease and avoid costly late-stage treatments. The HHS says personal genomic profiles may also "enable patients to learn their particular predisposition to disease and take more effective disease prevention steps."

The report addresses many current issues in health care such as electronic health records, privacy in medicine (such as the recent GINA law) and how genetic and molecular-based tests are used in patient management. Secretary Leavitt states in the report that the potential in personalized health care makes it a significant factor in any plan to reform the nation's health care system. Current models of paying for health care, the report says, emphasizing volume of care over value or quality, may hinder promising new avenues that would avoid expensive late-stage treatments or prevent disease.

Adapted from a press release by HHS. The report is available at http://www.hhs.gov/myhealthcare/news/presonalized-healthcare-2008.html.

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