New technologies could cut medical errors says Karolinska survey

Image courtesy US NHGRI

“With the right investment and R&D, personalised healthcare has the potential to be the most significant development in medicine for years,” says Carl Johan Sundberg, Associate Professor, Karolinska Institutet.

The results demonstrate that despite a consensus emerging from industry professionals that personalised healthcare would improve patient safety and save money in the longer term, short-term thinking on investment and regulation is holding back progress.

In all, 80 per cent of respondents believe personalised healthcare will reduce medical errors, while 64 per cent believe “improved patient outcomes” to be to a major benefit of personalised healthcare.

Beyond this significant contribution to improve patient safety, 46 of those surveyed think total healthcare spending will be reduced by personalised healthcare approaches in the long-term, over the next 15 years, but 58 per cent envisage a short-term rise in costs associated with the deployment of personalised medicine over the next 5 years.

The survey’s results summarise the opinions of almost 600 academic researchers, healthcare professionals, patient-group representatives regulators and industry leaders across four major European markets of Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the UK.

Barriers to development

Apart from the short term increase in costs as traditional and personalised medicine are deployed in parallel, the respondents see other significant barriers in the way of extracting the potential of this new approach to healthcare. Over 60 per cent agree that the absence of clear regulatory guidelines is causing a delay in the market authorisation of personalised healthcare products and services.

At the same time, 45 per cent identified “insufficient funding in R&D” and “misalignment between research policy and research conducted” as very significant barriers.

Given these hurdles, 80 per cent of respondents believe European-wide cooperation will be necessary to speed the development and adoption of personalised healthcare.

Benefits will flow

The findings show a majority of participants feel they are familiar with the concept of personalised healthcare and believe it will contribute to major benefits such as, “improved patient outcomes” and “avoidance of adverse effects”.  Moreover, a major section of stakeholders deem that personalised healthcare will lower total healthcare spending in the long-term, over 15 years.

At the same time, for the technology to be fully implemented and integrated across the healthcare value chain, the respondents point to a number of both scientific and structural hurdles that needed to be overcome. Without a “basic understanding of human biology and disease mechanisms” the majority of those surveyed fail to see a smooth transformation from the traditional healthcare paradigm to personalised healthcare.

A need for structural improvements

The data also reveal that structural improvements, both in terms of increased investment in R&D and improved flexibility in the regulatory framework, are necessary. Overall, the stakeholders seem to agree on the major issues brought up in the survey and believe further EU cooperation will be necessary for the development and adoption of personalised healthcare to succeed.

Carl Johan Sundberg, Associate Professor and Coordinator for Science & Society at Karolinska Institutet, who oversaw the survey, says the findings show that personalised healthcare is at an inflection point that will have a profound impact on the effectiveness and cost of future treatments. “Personalised healthcare addresses the challenges of the traditional 'one-size-fits-all' model when it comes to diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of disease. By combining knowledge about genetics, blood and other biomarkers with lifestyle factors, and through the use of modern information technology, healthcare stakeholders are facing enormous opportunities.”

But he adds, “For personalised healthcare to be successfully developed and adopted, numerous scientific, economical and societal issues must be addressed.”