Genetic profiling

Recently, an announcement by the department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has created somewhat of a scare. They said they were working to combine healthcare information technology with genetics and would like to standardize how this information could be stored become part of the national electronic health-record system under development at HHS.

Many believe it is likely to fail because of patient resistance. Combining both health and genetics patient records could lead to insurers limiting patient access to healthcare—or patients being charged more by insurers based on diseases or conditions to which they are genetically predisposed. It is unlikely people will accept that given the response the media took to wiretapping terrorists.

Standardizing the technology is laudable, but the chances of replacing today's largely paper-based records system with a system combining genetics and IT is very slim. The legal environment, the current payment system dominated by private-sector health insurance companies, and patient perception will prevent this from occurring for some time.

Much more work and study groups will be formed by the HHS before anything of real substance comes out of the proposal, but things will change eventually.