Healthcare Digital February 2022 | Page 77

TECHNOLOGY
BETWEEN 40 % -70 % OF INDIVIDUALS HAVE A PROBLEM WITH MEDICATION EI- THER THEY EXPERIENCE SIDE EFFECTS OR THE DRUG DOESN ' T WORK
ADVERSE DRUG REACTIONS WERE RANKED AS THE FOURTH LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH IN THE U . S .
That is yet another reason why using racial terms in healthcare decision making can be flawed because we can say ‘ African descent ’, or ‘ African American ’, or ‘ Asian ’, but if somebody has parents of different races , then where do they fit in ? We can overcome the lack of specificity from relying on race by focusing more on the interplay of individuals ’ genetics and medications .
“ There ' s a drug that made a lot of headlines in the United States several years ago , the brand name is BiDil . It is a drug that ' s a combination of hydralazine and isosorbide , that is used for treatment of heart failure . But it made news because it was the first drug that the FDA ever approved for one specific racial group . It was only approved for patients who self-identified as being African American .
“ When you ' re asking people to make important medical decisions , it sounds simple , but for many people , it ' s not .”
The use of AI in pharmacogenomics “ The promise of AI in healthcare and in pharmacogenomics , in precision medicine more broadly , is enormous ”, says Streetman . “ I think its exact role is still being felt-out – but I do think it has a lot of promise for pharmacogenomics in a couple of really important ways : One of the things that we suffer from now in pharmacogenomics , is that much of the information we have , much of the early studies that have been done
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