Implementation of wide-scale pharmacogenetic testing in primary care

Abstract

The convergence of translational genomics and biomedical informatics has changed healthcare delivery. Institutional consortia have begun implementing lab testing and decision support for drug-gene interactions. Aggregate datasets are now revealing the impact of clinical decision support for drug-gene interactions. Given the pleiotropic nature of pharmacogenes, interdisciplinary teams and robust clinical decision support tools must exist within an informatics framework built to be flexible and capable of cross-talk between clinical specialties. Navigation of the challenges presented with the implementation of five steps to build a genetics program infrastructure requires the expertise of multiple healthcare professionals. Ultimately, this manuscript describes our efforts to place pharmacogenomics in the hands of the primary care provider integrating this information into a patient's healthcare over their lifetime.

Keywords: clinical decision support; education; implementation; inter-professional; pharmacogenetics; pharmacogenomics; primary care.