Science:
The International Classification of Diseases has served for
more than 100 years as a standard for the World Health
Organization, physicians, and the healthcare industry to track
disease incidence, make diagnoses, and determine reimbursement
for care. Last year, however, the National Institutes of Health
decided it was time to update it. What the resulting National
Research Council panel has proposed is a massive data network
that would combine cutting-edge genomic and molecular data on
patients' diseases with their routine medical records, writes
Jocelyn Kaiser for
Science. That system would be used to develop a new
disease taxonomy and personalize medical care, according to the
108-page report, titled
Toward Precision Medicine: Building a Knowledge Network for
Biomedical Research and a New Taxonomy of Disease.
Creating such a network of data is expected to take a decade or
two, and it will require a change in the public’s
attitude toward patient privacy and the use of personal medical
data for research.
