ES15.03 Effective and Interpretable Reporting of Genotyping Results

Genomic advances over the past several decades have transformed lung cancer care and improved patient outcomes. Clinicians can leverage information about driver mutations or biologically relevant markers to select therapies that are more effective and less toxic than conventionally chemotherapy. Despite the promise of precision medicine, however, there are major gaps in lung cancer care delivery. A major problem in lung cancer is significant underutilization of indicated genomic testing and targeted therapy. Data suggest that up to half of all patients who could benefit from genomic care may not be getting the care that they need. Myriad factors contribute to genomic care gaps. A significant factor in poor care delivery relates to the complexity of genomic data interpretation. Many physicians report low levels of genomic confidence, find genomic results difficult to interpret and explain, and have trouble keeping up with rapidly emerging evidence. In addition, although the vast majority of patients want to genomic information returned to them, they frequently do not remember or misunderstand their test results. Moreover, many health care systems are poorly configured to deal with genomic sequencing data. Specifically, data are often housed in electronic medical records in a relatively inaccessible unstructured format that limits options for clinical decision support. Given these significant care gaps, there is an urgent need to develop point-of-care tools to improve the interpretability of genomic reports. In this session, we will provide an overview of interventions that have been created to improve genomic reporting for providers and patients. We will provide an overview of a study in which we evaluated interactive, web-based clinician-directed genomic reports. Report use improved comprehension of key genomic concepts. We will also highlight work on the HOPE-Genomics intervention. HOPE-Genomics is a “patient-friendly” web-based tool that 1) educates patients about genomics, 2) enables direct-to-patient return-of-results, and 3) facilitates sharing of genomic results within families. This intervention is highly acceptable to patients, family members and physicians. We will provide an overview of the HOPE-Genomics tool and outline an upcoming randomized trial to evaluate tool efficacy. Finally, we will highlight the need for additional innovation in point-of-care education for patients and providers and stress the importance of open-source development and the sharing of best practices. It is imperative that we not only create tests and therapies to improve lung cancer outcomes, but we have the tools needed to realize the effective translation of genomic technologies in routine clinical care.