The Health Populi blog has a post on personalized medicine, focusing on a white paper published this month by the US Department of Health and Human Services and last week's issue of Science. The HHS paper, entitled Personalized Health Care: Opportunities, Pathways, Resources, "provides a straightforward primer on genomics and health IT as the dual foundations of personalized health care," writes Jane Sarasohn-Kahn. She notes, however, that more attention should be paid to patient participation in the process: We've learned a lot about informed consent, attention spans, and health literacy to know that engaging the patient/consumer is a major challenge. Here, the supporting roles of advisors, coaches, family, friends, and communities will be crucial building blocks, along with the sound science.