Cancer precision medicine today: Towards omic information in healthcare systems

Introduction: This article focuses on the integration of omics data in electronic health records and on interoperability aspects relating to big data analysis for precision medicine. Methods: Omics data integration methods for electronic health record and for systems interoperability are considered, with special reference to the high number of specific software tools used to manage different aspects of patient treatment. This is an important barrier against the use of this integrated approach in daily clinical routine. Results: The correct use of all three levels of interoperability (technical, semantic, and process interoperability) plays a key role in order to achieve an easy access to a significant amount of data, all with correct contextualization, which is the only way to obtain a real value from data for precision medicine. Conclusions: The proposed architecture could improve the potentialities of data routinely collected in many health information systems to form a real patient center information environment.