Cleveland Clinic Creates Center for Personalized Healthcare

CLEVELAND, Jan. 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- In an effort to provide a more targeted approach to patient care, Cleveland Clinic has established the Center for Personalized Healthcare, which will offer healthcare providers the tools they need to tailor care plans to the individual characteristics of each patient.

The new center will operate as the Cleveland Clinic's focal point for the identification, analysis, adoption and integration of select new services and technologies that will allow for personalized care of patients.

Kathryn Teng, M.D., a primary-care physician at Cleveland Clinic, will lead the new center and its efforts to incorporate personalized healthcare across all facets of patient care within Cleveland Clinic. "In the first year, we plan to create awareness of, and supply physicians with, additional resources that allow collection and analysis of family medical history," Dr. Teng said. "Ultimately, our goal is to help clinicians offer a wider range of considerations and options for patients, while also providing patients with resources that encourage proactive behavior and empower them to be active partners in their health plan."

In its initial phase, the center will provide physicians and nurses with the guidance and resources needed to create personalized care plans based on their patients' unique characteristics, such as genetics, environmental exposures, cultures and beliefs.

Dr. Teng, who specializes in comprehensive and preventive care for adult patients, has committed her career to advocacy for her patients and education of medical students, residents, and other physicians. Combined with her primary-care responsibilities, she is an Assistant Professor at Lerner College of Medicine and previously served as an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.  She was voted as one of the Best Doctors in Cleveland Magazine by her peers in 2009 and 2010.  She has served as Director of General Internal Medicine Grand Rounds at Cleveland Clinic since 2007 and Patient Experience Officer for the Medicine Institute of Cleveland Clinic since 2008, during which time she created the first Voice of the Patient Advisory Council for the Medicine Institute.

"This new center will build on our efforts to create evidence-based personalized health plans for our patients by incorporating new technologies and innovations which will allow us to truly focus upon each individual," said Dr. Teng. "There will be a greater emphasis on the physician-patient relationship as we team together to develop more accurate and personalized care plans.  Our ultimate goal is to empower our patients and our community towards greater health."

About Cleveland Clinic

Cleveland Clinic, located in Cleveland, Ohio, is a not-for-profit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. It was founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation. U.S. News & World Report consistently names Cleveland Clinic as one of the nation's best hospitals in its annual "America's Best Hospitals" survey. About 2,100 full-time salaried physicians and researchers and 11,000 nurses represent 120 medical specialties and subspecialties. In addition to its main campus, Cleveland Clinic operates nine regional hospitals and 15 Family Health Centers in Northeast Ohio, Cleveland Clinic Florida, the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, Cleveland Clinic Canada, and opening in 2012, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. In 2009, there were more than 4.6 million visits throughout the Cleveland Clinic health system and 170,000 hospital admissions. Patients came for treatment from every state and from more than 100 countries. Visit us at www.clevelandclinic.org.

SOURCE Cleveland Clinic