Personalized Medicine—Essential Tips for Driving Growth Through Patient Centricity

 

 

Healthcare is dynamic, and so are the demands of the population and the types of diseases that affect them. With higher life expectancies, lifestyle-related diseases, and a rat-race culture at work, healthcare needs vary quite drastically between age groups, genders, and individuals. 

 

The way one reacts to external factors like stress, sedentary lifestyle, or junk food varies. Moreover, while some adhere to healthcare advice well, others are neck-deep in work-related travel and totally overlook regimens. It is worth stating that patients also actively looking to participate in deciding the treatment that fits their day the best.  That is precisely why run-of-the-mill healthcare approaches don’t work anymore. The world requires patient-centric healthcare that adds value to every piece of healthcare advice and is more than just a prescription. This initiates the need for personalized medicine. 

 

 

Personalized Medicine and Patient-centered Outcomes

People today are highly empowered due to digital technology. They are aware of the latest advancements in technology, look to participate in the treatment planning process, and prefer transparent communications. 

 

Digital tactics have altered the way patients and healthcare professionals communicate. This marks the beginning of personalized medicine and patient-centered outcomes. 

 

What is Personalized Medicine?

 

Personalized medicine is a healthcare approach that tailors medical treatment to a person’s unique genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors. It can improve therapeutic outcomes by influencing the specific characteristics of each patient, resulting in more precise and effective treatments.

 

Worth mentioning here is the concept of 'multi-omics’. It is the concept of merging genomes, transcriptomics, epigenetics, and proteomics data, to help researchers gain a more comprehensive understanding of molecular changes that contribute to normal development, cellular response, and disease.

 

This includes gut microbiome analysis, and genomic profiling, and integrates information from a variety of sources such as laboratory findings, radiological imaging, personal and family medical history, as well as the study of the epigenome. By combining these diverse data points, Multiomics allows us to gain deeper insights into individual health patterns and tailor personalized and precision medicine.

 

What do you understand by Patient-centered Outcomes?

 

Patient-centric design refers to healthcare results that focus on the preferences, needs, and values of the patient. It prioritizes patient-centered quality care, satisfaction, and overall well-being, ensuring that treatment decisions are aligned with what the patient needs.

 

Technology is essentially an enabler. It can motivate and support personalized medicine and patient-centered outcomes. Care providers have access to an abundance of digital data from connected tech sources (devices, trials, research, best practices, training, patient data) to make day-to-day decisions. This marks a fundamental shift by transforming point-of-care into evidence-based practice. 

 

Essential Tips for Personalized Medicine and Patient-Centered Outcomes

The nuts and bolts of becoming patient-centric design involve:

 

• Patient engagement: It begins with an understanding of ‘what matters most’ to the patient. The healthcare professional and his team must then analyze and think along similar lines. 

 

• Building trust and open communication: Open dialogues, transparent communication, visual demonstrations, and keeping the patient informed about every step of care build rapport and ensure the patient feels comfortable and trusts the healthcare provider. 

 

• Management: all phases of treatment, acute and chronic need hands-on support and care. It is important to modify protocols to ensure personalized care whilst maintaining scientific standards. This ensures the patient accepts and adheres to therapy to achieve successful outcomes. 

 

• Data analytics and measuring patient-centricity outcomes: it is important to measure positive outcomes, patient adherence and retention, feedback on communication channels, etc. to help strategize future plans.

 

 

Is Personalized Medicine Too Much to Expect From Indian Healthcare?

Smartphones, the Internet, and government initiatives such as the Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission (ABDM) encourage people to schedule appointments online, access consultations and medicines faster, and monitor their health online 24/7. 

 

So yes, slowly and steadily, India is on its way to personalized medicine. However, certain bottlenecks still need attention, namely:

 

• Tech-updated healthcare devices and wearables are yet not accessible by many—both due to the lack of awareness and affordability.

• Considering the healthcare provider as a collaborator and together working as a team towards treatment success is still difficult to master.

• Lack of holistic training and orientation of teams to the latest health tech and healthcare concepts

• Patient safety and protection.

• Patient education on treatment and gadgets used.

 

Building a healthcare ecosystem where health tech giants and healthcare providers join the system is perhaps the best way to solve these issues and establish the precision medicine market.

 

 

Emergence of Anastomos in Building a Patient-Centered Healthcare Delivery System

Anastomos is India’s healthcare providers’ network, founded and run by healthcare providers. With a unique group of mentors, healthcare consultants, and healthcare professionals who are evolving, adopting, and adapting health tech, Anastomos can help healthcare providers in every stage of their careers. 

 

Whether you are an advisor, a mentor, a coach, a healthcare firm, a professional, or a startup founder, Anastomos can help you connect with the right experts and orient you to the best practices of personalized medicine and patient-centric healthcare. 

 

The platform has a uniquely designed Learning & Development Section and Expert Advisors on the Marketplace to help you support your endeavors. The Sign-up is free, and you can explore before you select your options.