W4 – Pharmacogenetic testing – how to make it sustainable?

Link to EAHP Statements

• Section 4 – Clinical Pharmacy: Statements – 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.6, 4.8
• Section 5 – Patient Safety and Quality Assurance: Statements – 5.1, 5.5

Abstract

Over the last decade, pharmacogenetic (PGx) testing has emerged as a tool for improving patient outcomes through eliminating and reducing avoidable adverse drug events, and by increasing clinical efficacy of the drug.

Despite the growing evidence about benefits of pharmacogenetic testing and development of PGx guidelines, many healthcare settings are facing challenges with its successful adoption and sustainability in a routine practice.  Barriers to the implementation of PGx testing can be substantial and difficult to overcome. In order to achieve persistence and stability of the testing, local adoption process should be well planned from the onset. Lack of trust and understanding of PGx testing results and knowledge of how to interpret and adjust treatment can be one of the major limitations in adoption of the testing. Education and training of clinicians, as well as interprofessional collaboration, will help to reduce this gap and help the implementation process. Another important key factor for integration of stable PGx testing, is creating an appropriate infrastructure which should include an electronic health record system and clinical decision support system (CDS) tool that can save the time and reduce the burden in finding and interpreting PGx information. Cost of PGx testing is another common obstacle in integrating testing into a clinical practice. High quality pharmaco-economic studies, which prove cost-effectiveness of PGx guided therapy, could help build a valid argument for implementation of pharmacogenetic testing into a clinical routine.

During this workshop, we will discuss the most common hurdles which stop from integrating sustainable PGx testing into clinical practice, and approach on how these burdens can be overcome.

Learning objectives

After the workshop the participants should be able to:

• List the most common barriers in achieving sustainable PGx testing
• Discuss approaches how to surmount the major difficulties in implementing and sustaining PGx testing

Educational need addressed

Pharmacists as members of a multidisciplinary team might play an important part in implementation and sustaining of PGx testing.

Keywords

Pharmacogenetics