Purpose of Precision Health
Precision health focuses on all aspects of disease prevention and treatment. This means that factors outside of a traditional doctor’s office, such as a patient’s lifestyle or environmental factors can also play into the treatment plan [1]. Furthermore, the family health history and current data from personal devices come together to provide better health results [1]. The overall goal is to provide various solutions that lead to preventive and personalized care. This requires both the patient and the doctor to be engaged in health decisions, which can be done through the use of health IT tools.
Health IT in Precision Health
Precision health requires large amounts of data to be stored and available for use by doctors when needed. This means that health IT must play a major role in the stability and implementation of precision health. For instance, data must be standardized and easily exchanged so different doctors can continuously interact with one another [2]. Moreover, the infrastructure requires data to be interoperable and functional even when it comes from various sources [2]. The infrastructure must also be tested to ensure that functional requirements are met as expected [2]. Therefore, management tools are important in keeping track of the different types of data that are stored and the different ways that users can access them.
Another important part that health IT plays in is the ability to integrate data into clinical workflows [2]. For instance, clinical data that is collected in laboratory settings need to be easily implemented into EHR systems so that hereditary information can be used in diagnosis and disease prevention [2]. This also includes adding data from wearables into EHR systems so that real-time information can be used to create more personalized treatment plans. However, some patients may have privacy concerns. Therefore, another critical role of health IT is to ensure patient safety priorities are met [2]. This can be done by creating and following standards. Overall, health IT plays a major role and will continue to play a bigger part in the future.
Benefits of Precision Health
Precision health leads to patient-centric treatment plans due to increased access to patient data. This leads to benefits such as a shift from disease treatment to disease prevention [3]. Furthermore, having access to more patient data can lead to better-personalized screening suggestions for patients that can detect diseases before they worsen. This allows patients to adjust their lifestyles when needed so they can prevent the worsening of certain diseases. Moreover, precision health allows doctors to predict how effective a treatment will be before prescribing it to the patient [3]. This can reduce adverse drug effects and worsening symptoms. In general, these benefits lead to better health outcomes for patients and lower health costs.
AI & Remote Care Services in Precision Health
AI can progress with the help of health IT solutions. For instance, since all of the data is securely stored and accessible, machine learning software can focus on preventive care [4]. Doctors can create models for different treatment plans and select the one that will result in the best outcome depending on the patient. This can help prevent unnecessary invasive procedures and adverse drug effects [4]. Moreover, AI can be used to provide patients with chat boxes and other virtual services so they can stay in touch even when their doctor is out of the office. This also allows remote services to be used with AI to provide patients with alerts throughout their care. Real-time data collected from patients will be monitored by AI to detect worsening symptoms. Overall, this allows treatment plans to be adjusted as needed to better suit the patient’s current condition.
HITS
HITS provides healthcare management services & works with doctors in the development of health informatics tools. We take pride in our services and settle for nothing other than 100% quality solutions for our clients. Having the right team assist with data sharing is crucial to encouraging collaborative and secure care for patients. If you’re looking for the right team, HITS is it! You can reach out to us directly at info@healthitsol.com. Check out this link if you’re interested in having a 15-minute consultation with us: https://bit.ly/3RLsRXR.
References
- https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/about/precision_med.htm#:~:text=Precision%20health%20involves%20approaches%20that,for%20you%20and%20your%20family
- https://www.healthit.gov/buzz-blog/precision-medicine/health-it-advances-precision-medicine
- https://www.jax.org/personalized-medicine/precision-medicine-and-you/what-is-precision-medicine
- https://www.hc1.com/blog/10-healthcare-trends-2022
