WASHINGTON, March 23 (UPI) -- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt outlined a personalized healthcare initiative Friday.
The project, which will encourage a combination of gene-based medical care and health information technology, will "give us the ability to deliver the right treatment to the right patient at the right time -- every time," Leavitt said at the annual meeting of the Personalized Medicine Coalition.
The agency will encourage a move toward personalized medicine in a variety of ways, Leavitt announced. Initiatives include a review of healthcare privacy issues, the accuracy of genetic testing, and the public availability of federally funded research results.
President Bush's 2008 budget also includes funding for a national health information database that would link together existing sources of data, according to the agency, in addition to his call for every American to have an electronic health record by 2014.
The American Health Information Community also pledged to develop health IT standards for including genetic test information on electronic health records.
