Vince Kuraitis
First published 4/23/11 on e-Care Management
By now most people understand the promise of pharmaceuticals being customized to “YOU” based on your individual genetic code. While this isn’t prevalent today, we understand that this will be possible in a few years.
Let’s take a minute to consider the mechanics of how this will occur. You’ve received a prescription, and it directs the pharmacist to tailor the medicine to YOUR genetic profile.
Consider two possible scenarios of how this transaction might happen. You’re on the phone with your pharmacist:
- “OK, you need my DNA sequence. I keep my genetic profile in my mattress…let me get it and I’ll read it out loud to you. C, A, T, G, G, A, T… no, that was actually a G…let me start over. C, A, T, G, G, A, T… (19 hours later) … T, and G. Can you read that back to me to make sure you got it right?”
- “You have permission to access my DNA sequence at my health URL (or maybe a health record bank, or perhaps hand her a flash drive, or ??).
Still think you’ll never use a PHR?
Vince Kuraitis is an analyst and consultant writing at e-Care Management.
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