We all have different bodies and we all have different minds. While general healthcare takes somewhat of a one-size-fits-all approach to diagnosis, treatment and prevention, personalized healthcare factors in our individual differences to provide a more bespoke care plan.
It’s a type of healthcare that is becoming more popular as technology improves. This post delves more into what it involves and its benefits.
What factors does personalized healthcare look into?
Personalized healthcare looks beyond routine tests when detecting, curing and preventing health problems. This includes thinking about factors such as:
- Genetic makeup: Our genetic makeup affects our body type, our metabolism, our skin type, our blood type and our susceptibility to developing various health problems. It can be important to consider when assessing cancer and diabetes risks.
- Lifestyle: Behaviours like smoking, drinking, diet, exercise and socialisation can all influence how likely or unlikely we are to encounter certain health problems.
- Environment: Where you live and work also impacts the types of health problems you may be at risk of developing.
- Personal values: Our personal values including religious beliefs, political views and ethical beliefs can impact which treatments and preventative strategies are appropriate.
Seeking out personalized healthcare may involve seeking out specialists that understand your unique circumstances and personal traits. Alternatively, you can seek out healthcare services that are able to combine the expertise of a range of professionals – this could include doctors, nutritionists, weight loss consultants, counsellors and psychiatrists. Such personalized plans could look at overall wellness and create comprehensive care plans rather than just focusing individually on medicine, exercise, diet and counselling.
Technology is also improving personalized healthcare by allowing the ability to track various biometric data in real time. AI programs can meanwhile look at results and provide more accurate diagnosis and predictions.
The benefits of personalized healthcare
Personalized healthcare has many benefits that are likely to make it the future of healthcare. This includes:
Comprehensive diagnosis
Whereas traditional health professionals often try to look for one problem at a time, personalized healthcare plans can be better for dual diagnosis of different conditions, because they typically assess overall health.
Improved accuracy
This approach also reduces the chance of certain symptoms or risk factors being missed, especially as it gives patients the power to run tests again or try tests that may be limited to certain people.
Greater focus on preventive care
Personalized healthcare looks at individual risk factors and can then put in place tests and measures to help prevent potential diseases. General healthcare services typically don’t look into this and are more reactive than proactive.
Minimized side effects
Because various individual factors are considered, there is often a lower chance of side effects from certain treatments when undergoing personalized healthcare plans.
Greater patient satisfaction
Personalized healthcare plans often offer greater patient satisfaction because the patient feels they are listened to. Whereas traditional healthcare treats patients like an assembly line, personalized healthcare gives each patient their own custom treatment.
Of course, there are big obstacles preventing personalized healthcare from going mainstream and that is lack of resources – both in terms of money and available staff. Individuals currently have to pay extra for it because of this. However, technology is helping to make it a more accessible form of healthcare by helping to automate admin and introduce forms of monitoring that don’t require regular appointments. Consequently, more general clinics are introducing personalized aspects, showing a gradual shift towards this style of healthcare.
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