Participatory medicine and patient empowerment towards personalized healthcare in multiple sclerosis

Abstract

The current understanding that the key for successful healthcare is an integrated approach, involving predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory medicine, is leading major changes. These are: a shift from medical decisions based on ‘trial and error’ to informed therapeutics based on diagnostics (theranostics); a shift from a ‘disease-centered’ to a ‘patient-centered’ approach; and a shift from a ‘reactive’ to ‘proactive’ medical approach. It is essential that not only the physician, but also the patient, becomes proactive. Therefore, beyond the integration of genomic medicine and predictive biomarkers into practice, patient empowerment and participatory medicine are gaining increasing attention. This requires, besides appropriate sharing of information between patients and healthcare providers, new insights in patient involvement, such as patient-reported outcomes, both at the clinical trial stage of drug development and during post-marketing follow-up assessments. Patient empowerment and participatory medicine, as part of predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory medicine, are especially crucial in paving the way towards optimized healthcare in complex and chronic neurological diseases, such as multiple sclerosis.

Keywords::

• adherence
• empowerment
• health literacy
• multiple sclerosis
• participatory
• patient centered
• patient-reported outcomes
• personalized medicine
• pharmacogenetics
• predictive
• telemedicine

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work was supported by the Wolfson Family Charitable Trust (UK); Estate of Yale S and Ella Miller Lewine (Ventura, CA, USA); Sanford Diller (Woodside, CA, USA); Mark and Merry Sherman-Saifer (San Carlos, CA, USA); Jonathan and Naomi Newman (Mercer Island, WA, USA); Adelis Foundation (France); The Galil Center for Telemedicine, Medical Informatics & Personalized Medicine (Haifa, Israel); the Rappaport Institute for Research in the Medical Sciences (Haifa, Israel); and the VPR fund of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (Haifa, Israel). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.