NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – The Geisinger Health System announced today that it has received a $400,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to support its GenomeFIRST Medicine program, which is designed to help patients and doctors use genomic information in healthcare.
"As we enter the era of precision health, we will increasingly use genetic information to identify health risk and then use preventive strategies to avoid disease," Michael Murray, director of clinical genomics at the Geisinger Genomic Medicine Institute, said in a statement. "This program is building the infrastructure to do that."
With the grant funding, Geisinger said it will test a scalable model for integrating genomic results into the care of 300 patients in its system, focusing on hereditary breast and ovarian cancer syndrome, hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer, and familial hypercholesterolemia.
"Genomic information is often about potentials and risks and the data can have implications for other members of your family," Paul Tarini, a senior program officer at RWJF, added in the statement. "The Geisinger project is testing an approach to help people and providers manage this information and is a critical step toward a culture of health."