The combination of precision medicine and information technology (IT) has the potential to improve patient outcomes. But many healthcare organizations are slow to pursue integration. A recently released report, “2017 Precision Medicine Study," from Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) outlines how healthcare organizations view the expansion and improvement of IT with precision medicine.

The study surveyed 100 professionals in biomedical roles, medical directors and laboratory directors, as well as including data from 5,640 U.S. hospital respondents.

Findings included:

1. The adoption of precision medicine has fallen from 28.5 percent in 2016 to 26 percent in 2017.
2. Research organizations or academic medical centers and organizations with more than 500 beds are most likely to implement precision medicine.
3. 65 percent of organizations selected oncology as the area to implement precision medicine.
4. Cardiology ranked second at 50 percent for the area of precision medicine implementation, an increase from 28 percent in 2016.
5. 36 percent of organization use dedication precision medicine platforms and in-house solutions to describe their IT approach to precision medicine, and 24 percent only used current in-house solutions.
6. 16 percent of organizations in 2017 reported feeling unsure about precision medicine and IT approaches, a significant decrease from 46 percent in 2016.