The American Medical Association Interim Meeting acknowledged the patient benefits from recent advances made in the use of genomic-based technologies.  The AMA House of Delegates encouraged the development of standards to guide clinical use as well as best practices for the laboratories performing such tests.

According to an article posted in amednews.com:

The AMA also will support regulatory and payment policies to enable doctors to use these diagnostic tools when clinically appropriate, while protecting patient rights such as confidentiality and freedom from genetic discrimination.It took more than 10 years and cost $2.7 billion for the Human Genome Project to sequence the entire human genome. Next-generation sequencing of the human genome, known as NGS, has sped the process dramatically, said the AMA Council on Science and Public Health report that the house adopted.

Next-generation sequencing is helping to reduce the cost of sequencing an individual genome to a projected $1000 and less with anticipated improved health outcomes and an unsurmountable amount of associated data.  Overcoming barriers to clinical implementation is the next step, according to AMA.