As millions of consumers choose to take DNA tests to gain greater insight into their health and wellness, healthcare providers must be prepared to have informed and meaningful conversations with their patients, helping them understand how their genes influence their health to enable them to take actionable next steps.
A recent Journal of Personalized Medicine article noted, however, that relevant genetic knowledge among healthcare providers, including primary care physicians, lags consumer enthusiasm for genetic screens. “For practicing providers, opportunities to engage with and learn about genomic medicine may be limited. Thus, identifying effective strategies for provider education is critical to close the gap in physician preparedness for genetics/genomics and precision medicine,” the journal reported. [i]
Ancestry’s educational grant to UpToDate is designed to help fill this knowledge gap as part of Ancestry’s unique focus on partnering with the healthcare industry toward improved health outcomes. The content, which will provide practical, accessible and contemporary information to help physicians advise their patients, is expected to be available on UpToDate platforms and Ancestry’s website at www.ancestry.com/health in early 2020.
Earlier this month, Ancestry launched AncestryHealth®, which, through a highly supportive and guided experience, delivers actionable insights that can empower people to take proactive steps – in collaboration with their healthcare provider – to address potential health risks identified in their genes and family health history.
“As we scale our AncestryHealth services to millions of consumers, we are committed to ensuring broad availability of educational materials to support healthcare providers who are engaging with patients about genetic risks and the proactive steps they can take to improve health outcomes,” said Georgiadis. “Ancestry’s educational grant to UpToDate is an important step to accelerate wide availability of this important information for physicians.”
“Ancestry and Wolters Kluwer share a vision of supporting clinicians with evidence-based information to help them make care decisions for patients who have undergone genetic testing,” said Peter Bonis, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Clinical Effectiveness, Wolters Kluwer, Health. “This educational grant enables UpToDate to determine and develop new content with editorial independence, which remains a critical component of our editorial policy.”
UpToDate provides medical information on 11,600 topics across 25 specialties. Over 1.7 million clinicians worldwide trust UpToDate to help them improve care decisions. The addition of genetic testing resources will provide evidence-based information to assist providers in diagnosing, treating and preventing illness.
[i] Susanne B. Haga, Esther Kim, Rachel A. Myers and Geoffrey S. Ginsburg, “Primary Care Physicians’ Knowledge, Attitudes, and Experience with Personal Genetic Testing,” Journal of Personalized Medicine, June 2019.
