Precision medicine is set to change many aspects of healthcare like shared decision making in the doctor-patient relationship, the privacy of patient data and confidentiality. A human touch to precision medicine is necessary. Caregivers and the physicians should not only focus on genetics and genomics. If they are neglecting who the patients are as individuals, while understanding their activities and behaviors in a better way, then they are missing a vital part of patients’ health.
Paul Ford, a clinical ethicist and Director of the Center for Bioethics at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation said that precision medicine should continue being human medicine; patient-centric and treating the patient as a whole. Ford mentioned they want to ensure that people feel respected by making treatment personalized and tailormade for them.
Ford advocates gathering the history of behavior and activity to include it in clinical decision making because having a complete history of patients is more than just facts mentioned in an EHR or medical chart. History is a story that throws light on behavior, goals, and attitudes that cannot be captured through EMR. Privacy and confidentiality are different in today’s world with humungous genomics and genetic data. It has great power of making predictions and pitfalls to avoid.