Roughly 75% of the U.S population does not metabolize medications normally since genetics can account for 20-95 percent of the variability in an individual’s response to drugs. The result is that 2.2 million people suffer severe Adverse Drug Events (ADE) in the U.S. every year.
Genelex www.genelex.com the makers of YouScript® a precision prescribing analytics software, just reported their connection with Epic www.epic.com to enable Genelex customers using Epic to better identify patients who are at the highest risk of ADEs based on drug-gene and drug-drug interactions.
A study recently published in the Journal of Medical Economics www.tandfonline.com, on research conducted at the University of Utah www.utah.edu showed that the use of pharmacogenetics testing and YouScript’s clinical decision support software reduced hospitalizations by 39 percent and ER visits by 71 percent in elderly patients taking multiple medications in just four months.
“Think about us as a precision medicine booster to enhance traditional decision support tools,” said Genelex CEO Kristine Ashcraft. “As many as 56 percent of all potentially clinically significant drug interactions are caused by drug-gene and cumulative drug-drug gene or drug-drug-drug interactions that can be missed by traditional decision support tools checking for drug-to-drug or drug-to allergy complications.”
Based on over 14,000 curated references and product inserts, YouScript determines the cumulative impact of genetics, medications, over-the-counters, herbals, and other factors offering ranked alternatives when interaction risk is found.
Dr. Michael Raff, Director of the Genomics Institute at MultiCare Health System www.multicare.org/research-clinical-genetics stated, “The integration of pharmacogenomics results into the EMR is a key step in the promise of precision medicine to improve patient care. By connecting electronically, Genelex and Epic are delivering on this promise.”
As Brad Strock, Epic’s Genomic Workgroup Lead reports, “Genelex’s clinical studies are impressive and results point to a tremendous opportunity for healthcare organizations to enhance their clinical decision support and improve the effectiveness of their population health programs.”