What are some potential benefits of precision medicine and the Precision Medicine Initiative?

Precision medicine holds promise for improving many aspects of health and healthcare. Some of these benefits will be apparent soon, as the All of Us Research Program continues and new tools and approaches for managing data are developed. Other benefits will result from long-term research in precision medicine and may not be realized for years.

Potential benefits of the Precision Medicine Initiative:

• New approaches for protecting research participants, particularly patients' privacy and the confidentiality of their data.

• Design of new tools for building, analyzing, and sharing large sets of medical data.

• Improvement of FDA oversight of tests, drugs, and other technologies to support innovation while ensuring that these products are safe and effective.

• New partnerships of scientists in a wide range of specialties, as well as people from the patient advocacy community, universities, pharmaceutical companies, and others.

• Opportunity for a million people to contribute to the advancement of scientific research.

Potential long-term benefits of research in precision medicine:

• Wider ability of doctors to use patients' genetic and other molecular information as part of routine medical care.

• Improved ability to predict which treatments will work best for specific patients.

• Better understanding of the underlying mechanisms by which various diseases occur.

• Improved approaches to preventing, diagnosing, and treating a wide range of diseases.

• Better integration of electronic health records (EHRs) in patient care, which will allow doctors and researchers to access medical data more easily.