This represents a drastic shift from current state. At present, people usually go to their treatment providers when something is wrong, and often they wait to see if the problem resolves on its own, leading to a worsening of symptoms before the individual seeks help. The idea of precision medicine (Collins & Varmus, 2015), set forth by President Obama in his state of the union address in 2015, is to convert health care from a treatment-based model to one that is predictive, preventative, and personalized. Because our DNA sequences are present from birth, our genes provide information about outcomes for which we are at elevated risk, and can help us intervene preventively.
