Personalized medicine and patient-centered care will transform health care institutions by 2020, according to an analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers‘ Health Research Institute.
The global business consultant reported on the top trends likely to impact U.S. and global health systems over the coming decade in its Healthcast: The Customization of Diagnosis, Care and Cure report.
“Personalized medicine is not a promise of the future; it is fast emerging as the current state in diagnostics and therapeutics,” according to a 2009 report (pdf) by Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. “Innovations based on genetic and molecular designs offer patients better care at lower cost because conditions are predicted sooner, diagnosed more accurately and treated more effectively.”
Historic U.S. health care reform legislation passed last month created an independent Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute that will be charged with conducting research to inform the public and health care providers about the comparative risks and benefits of marketed drugs, devices and medical products, according to Pharmacogenomics Reporter.
The institute also will examine the utility and effectiveness of medical products and services in “various sub-populations” differentiated by race, ethnicity, sex, age, co-morbidities, as well as genetic and molecular subtypes, the Reporter said. “For personalized medicine, this vote is historic,” Amy Miller, public policy director at the Personalized Medicine Coalition, told Pharmacogenomics Reporter. “It represents the first time that the principles of personalized medicine have been passed by both houses of Congress.”
Here are some highlights of the PricewaterhouseCoopers report:
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
- A huge effort is underway to get people engaged in managing their health. As that happens, the demand for consumer-oriented health products, services and technology applications is expected to soar.
- New and existing health care jobs will be in high demand, especially health care navigators, health educators and care coordinators. PWC also sees an increasing need for primary care physicians, nurses and physicians assistants.
- There will be a transformation in how doctors are paid–to an outcome-based system from the current volume-based one.
- Innovative approaches to preventing and managing chronic disease, such as diabetes, will rein in one of the largest drivers of health care costs.
- The use of technology to improve access to care will finally become reality: smartphones, telemedicine, remote medical monitoring, online consultations, educational health chat rooms.
- Diagnostic tests based on human genome research will become commonplace, leading to the targeted use of medicines only with patients who have DNA shown to be responsive to certain medicines–cutting costs on wasted drugs and unwanted side effects in patients for whom those drugs are ineffective.
- Behavior modification approaches will emerge as the responsibility for health management shifts to the consumer while the government, insurers and employers seek more effective solutions for curbing costs.
PWC is “extremely bullish on prospects for dramatic improvements in health care,” the consultancy said in its report. “The health care system is really getting ‘wired up’ and will provide major cost savings in the very near term.”
