Personalized medicine a new era in care
NorthShore University HealthSystem (NorthShore) recently launched one of the most comprehensive personalized medicine programs in the country that utilizes an individual's health history and DNA to better predict, prevent and diagnose certain diseases, and develop tailored therapies to fight them.
"We have known that identifying the health history of an individual's family can play a powerful role in early detection and prevention of disease," said Michael Caplan, MD, NorthShore's chief scientific officer and chairman of the Department of Pediatrics. "Today, new and affordable genetic testing allows us to determine an individual's likelihood to develop disease and respond to specific treatments."
The Center for Personalized Medicine benefits patients in the following areas:
• Center for Medical Genetics - one of the largest and busiest adult genetic counseling centers in the country that incorporates genomic information with the latest genetic technology and information to provide personalized care;
• Center for Molecular Medicine - translates research into clinical practice, using the power of DNA analysis and integrated with the health system's electronic medical record (EMR)
• Personalized Medicine Consult Clinics - offer specialized care in oncology and cardiovascular clinics
• Pharmacogenomics Clinic - one of only a few clinics nationwide that pre-emptively provides genetic testing to help predict how patients will respond to certain drugs
• Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory - comprised of multidisciplinary pathology experts using advanced tumor diagnostics and DNA analysis
• A groundbreaking research study that is collecting 100,000 DNA samples to understand the correlation between genomics and disease, paving the way to more effectively manage patients' health on a larger scale.
"One of the most exciting capabilities we have as part of the Center is the DNA sequencing of blood and tumors," said Karen Kaul, MD, Ph.D., chairman, Department of Pathology at NorthShore. "With a DNA sample from blood or tumors, we identify key genetic patterns and mutations, enabling our team to better diagnose conditions, tailor treatments and personalize care. This is truly the beginning of a new era of genomic medicine."
Doug Silverstein, president of NorthShore Evanston Hospital, says, "Patient data helps us understand the health care path of someone's life. An individual's genome, health history and the collective data of the EMR can help us predict what conditions a patient may develop in the future, such as diabetes or high blood pressure."
The personalized patient data analysis being developed at NorthShore will enable real-time clinical decision support alerts through its EMR, allowing clinicians to apply the results of genetic testing in the traditional patient care setting, explained Silverstein.
• For more information on NorthShore's Center for Personalized Medicine and genomic research initiatives, please visit http://www.northshore.org/personalized-medicine/.