Integrating bioinformatics advances into disease management systems to improve quality of care

Abstract

Although we have made progress in reducing mortality and morbidity rates in a number of human diseases through early detection and adjuvant therapy, the interventions inferred from conventional disease management and clinical care systems, such as those in cancers and neurological diseases, still lack discrimination and come at considerable emotional, physical, and financial cost. Complex diseases exhibit complex phenotypes, and proper diagnosis at the point-of-care requires that the analysis take into account the patient's history and exposure to environmental factors, as well as genotype and phenotype information.