What if, when you went to your doctor’s office, you came away with a plan for treatment that was custom-made for your exact genetic makeup, your lifestyle, and your health goals? 

For many years in medical care, patients have experienced the frustration of a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to medical advice. Medications, tests, and treatments follow a generic template. 55% of patients feel like they aren’t being listened to, that their individual experience isn’t taken into account, given the blanket approach to care.

Change isn’t just on the horizon; it’s here. Personalized medicine has arrived, giving you the opportunity to experience a more effective, individualized path to medical care. 1

What Is Personalized Medicine?

Your genes, your environment, and your lifestyle all play a significant role in how your medical provider should advise you on disease prevention and treatment. Personalized medicine, also called precision medicine, is a medical model that uses that information about you to design an approach for you and your medical provider when it comes to your care. 

For example, there are now genetic tests that can now predict how you might react to particular medications. Genetic tests can also show if you have a predisposition to certain diseases or cancers. When your doctor uses this genetic information, it can help them offer you treatments that are more accurate to your biology, prescribe medication that could have fewer side effects for you, and overall develop an individual treatment plan that could give you better outcomes. (You can read more about genetic testing here.)

What Makes Personalized Medicine So Important?

  1. 🏆 Higher Success Rates
    Research has shown that when cancer treatments are targeted based on someone’s genetic profiling, the effectiveness of the treatment is 61.5%, as compared to just 13.5% for traditional chemotherapy approaches. More lives are saved with fewer harsh side effects when personalized medicine guides the treatment plan. 2
  2. 💊 Lowers Trial-and-Error Prescribing
    1.5 million people end up in the emergency room in the U.S. every year because of reactions to prescription medications. 3 It bears repeating; that’s 1.5 million people, with a price tag of over $3.5 billion for the ER visits, specific to drug side effects. Many of these adverse reactions could be reduced by doctors using personalized medicine protocols, helping doctors choose the right drugs for their patients based on their individual biology and genetics. “We know that there are variations in certain genes that are involved in drug metabolism and that people can have changes in those genes that actually make them metabolize medication in different ways,” says Dr. Mira Irons, MD, a pediatrician and medical geneticist. 4
  3. 🩺 More Consistent Preventative Care
    When you have a better understanding of your specific disease risks based on your genetics and biology, you’ve more likely to pursue preventative care for those issues. Your genomic screening can reveal your specific risks for diseases like diabetes, Alzheimer’s, or certain cancers before symptoms appear. This empowers both you and your medical professional to make lifestyle changes and treatments earlier, often before you ever experience symptoms.
  4. 💲Money Saver
    While personalized medicine is new enough that the numbers of potential financial savings are still being crunched, experts believe the cost-savings could be significant. Personalized medicine can help lower overall healthcare costs by helping patients avoid ineffective and unnecessary treatments, reduce drug reactions, and lower hospitalizations. 5

What This Means for Health Share Members

Altrua HealthShare is built on the precept of caring for one another by sharing in each other’s eligible medical needs. More effective care, the honoring of the unique way God designs each human being, better patient safety and outcomes, and the stewardship of the Member escrow account are powerful reasons for Members to seek personalized care. Because Altrua HealthShare Members are healthy lifestyle and community-minded, personalized care is a strong fit with the values of Altrua HealthShare. 

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

Psalm 139:14

How to Make Personalized Medicine Work for You

  1. Talk with Your Doctor: See if your doctor encourages the use of genetic testing and other personalized tools as they help you create your health strategy. If your current provider doesn’t align with your priorities on precision medicine, search for medical professions in your area who actively promote on their websites that they use personalized medicine as a standard of care.
  2. Put Those Wearables to Work: Devices like your Apple Watch or Garmin, along with a host of other wearables on the market, can provide great personalized information for you and your doctor to consider. Make sure to bring up the data on your wearable at your next appointment.
  3. Utilize Altrua HealthShare Member Service Representative: If you’re an Altrua HealthShare Member and would like help finding a care provider, you can check in with an Altrua HealthShare Member Service Representative for more information. As an Altrua HealthShare Member, you are not restricted to a certain network. A Member Services Representative can walk you through how to talk to a new care provider about your status as a health share member. If you’re not yet an Altrua HealthShare Member and would like more information about becoming a Member, you can call 1-888-244-3839 or go to the Altrua HealthShare website to learn more. Altrua HealthShare also has personalized membership levels available, called MyShare, where you can choose the features and price point that fits your lifestyle and budget.

The Future of Medicine Is You! 

As personalized medicine continues to grow and evolve, the promise of better care, more individualized approaches to disease and treatment, and a higher level of effectiveness could be on the horizon. The future of medicine is you, your unique makeup, your specific biological design.

1 https://www.mitre.org/news-insights/news-release/mitre-harris-poll-many-patients-feel-ignored-or-doubted
2 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7907921/#:~:text=Effectiveness%20was%20seen%20in%208,5%25)%20treated%20with%20chemotherapy.
3 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2932855/#:~:text=Despite%20the%20prevalence%20of%20outpatient,resulting%20in%20a%20healthcare%20visit.
4 https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/population-health/what-doctors-wish-patients-knew-about-precision-medicine#:~:text=%E2%80%9CPersonalized%20medicine%2C%20because%20it’s%20based,to%20prevention%20by%20predicting%20susceptibility.%E2%80%9D
5 https://www.iomcworld.org/open-access/economic-implications-of-personallized-medicine-a-review-of-costeffectiveness-studies.pdf