Scientific advances have led to more targeted interventions that are informed by a patient’s biology as well as environmental and behavioral factors. Technological innovation presents opportunities to understand how individual variability affects health, so that treatment may be guided to only those patients who will benefit. However, there are fundamental gaps in awareness and evidence that impact the speed at which personalized medicine products and services are integrated into health care. Personalized medicine and patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) share the same goal of shifting health care from a one-size-fits-all, trial-and-error approach toward a targeted approach that utilizes patients’ characteristics and preferences to inform healthcare decisions. Despite this clear connection between personalized medicine and PCOR, all relevant stakeholders across the healthcare spectrum have not been engaged in setting a research agenda that is informed by early successes in personalized medicine adoption and builds on principles defined by patients.
