BUSINESSSouped-up EMR: Some interesting new applicationsBehind the electronic medical record is the emerging field of bioinformatics. But physicians who want to integrate a patient's genetic code into treatment decisions will need the technology and ability to analyze those data.By Tyler Chin, amednews staff. Oct. 9, 2006. Most electronic medical records enable doctors to store, organize and query clinical information. The system at the Marshfield (Wis.) Clinic digs all the way down to a patient's individual genetic code. During the next two years, clinic physicians plan to order genetic tests for patients who are prescribed warfarin, an anti-coagulant sold under various brand names. The clinic will be able to access electronically test results and calculate the ideal drug dosage for each patient based on entered knowledge of genetic makeup, and clinical and environmental data. Marshfield is an early adopter of the growing integration of clinical and genetic data. Bioinformatics involves the use of massive computing power, statistical analysis and computational algorithms to analyze and solve biomedical problems at the molecular level. Research has been going on since the advent of computers, but the 2003 sequencing of the human genome gave bioinformatics tools a boost. Researchers hope bioinformatics will lead to discoveries of new treatments and diagnoses, as well as enable physicians to identify people at risk for a particular disease. What some term "personalized medicine" could be given at the practice level with the help of EMRs that can store patients' genetic codes. "The idea of personalized medicine is that in choosing which drugs to give an individual, we will no longer assume that there is a best drug [for a specific disease] but rather that different drugs will be better for different people with different genotypes and different environmental exposures," said Justin Starren, MD, PhD, director of the bioinformatics research center at the 750-physician Marshfield Clinic. "The process of matching the patient to the drug will become exponentially more complex." [...]Full text of American Medical News content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2006 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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