Leavitt Discusses "Personalized Health Care"
On Friday, Michael Leavitt, the Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, outlined a plan for "personalized health care," which is defined in the press release as "gene-based medical care combined with health information technology." Speaking of this new initiative, Leavitt stated, "Personalized health care will combine the basic scientific breakthroughs of the human genome with computer-age ability to exchange and manage data . . . . Increasingly, it will give us the ability to deliver the right treatment to the right patient at the right time--every time." While Leavitt advocates for advances to this program, privacy rights activists would likely prefer that the phrases "gene-based medical care" and "health information technology" not be used in combination.
Leavitt's announcement also outlined several steps that must be taken to reap the benefits of this powerful combination, including the following:
- reviewing the implications on privacy protection and the "anticipated effect on the confidentiality, privacy and security of individually identifiable health information";
- taking steps to ensure that genetic tests are accurate and reliable;
- developing "consistent policies for [HHS] agencies regarding access to and security of federally supported research"; and
- receiving recommendations from the American Health Information Community for health information technology standards applicable to genetic testing information.
Leavitt called the development of a personalized health care system one of his priorities for the next two years.
Additional Resources:
United States Department of Health and Human Services Personalized Health Care Page
I cringe every time I hear the term "gene" juxtaposed with any notion of therapy or clinical care. Genetics is mostly useful to clinical care at this point for its diagnostic value -- why does someone have X, Y, and Z symptoms? Why it's because of gene 123abc.
The notion that gene technology is therapeutic is misleading and arguably feeds into the ubiquitous therapeutic misconception that attends so much clinical research. In fact, one of the byproducts of the Jesse Gelsinger case is that the scientists and institutes generally changed the way they referred to the technique: as "gene transfer" instead of "gene therapy."
This isn't so say we shouldn't attempt to translate gene science into clinical care as a therapeutic regimen. Of course we should, but at present, speaking of gene therapy is misleading, IMO.