St. Elizabeth Healthcare was one of 30 organizations across the nation that was invited by the White House to participate in President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative Summit in late February. This event gathered 150 leaders from the Federal government, private sector, academia, research organizations and patient advocacy groups to highlight precision medicine efforts, share best practices, and identify opportunities for further collaboration. President Obama attended the Summit to hear individual views from attendees and foster collaboration around this important initiative.

The White House convened this summit just more than a year after President Obama announced his Precision Medicine Initiative. The President allocated $215 million in the 2016 budget to the initiative, providing funding to the National Institute of Health (NIH), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). Precision Medicine tailors treatment and prevention strategies to people’s unique characteristics, including their genome sequence, microbiome composition, health history, lifestyle, and diet.

Giolando
Photo by Mark Bowen.

Sarah Giolando, Chief Strategy Officer of St. Elizabeth Healthcare was invited to attend the Summit to discuss its initiative to use precision medicine to identify the appropriate medication to treat depression and other behavioral health disorders, based on a patient’s genetic profile, often referred to as pharmacogenomics.