Policy and personalized oral health care

Policy—whether promulgated by government, professions, business, providers, or others—determines priorities and establishes how things are done. When applied to personalized oral healthcare, polices established by these interests may advance or impede application of science to practice with both intended and unintended consequences. Federal science and technology policy will substantially impact how personalized medicine and dentistry are advanced through scientifi c discovery, how the public gains an understanding of these novel approaches, and how advances in care will be integrated into health insurance coverage. Federal health policy can be expected to accelerate an existing shift from healthcare systems to health-promoting systems with attendant cost and outcome accountability. Financial incentives inherent in such health-promoting systems are intended to engage healthcare providers in mitigating risks and addressing health determinants which can be identifi ed through genetic and epigenetic studies. Confi dentiality concerns can be expected to remain paramount to policymakers even as tensions between privacy and utility expand with greater volumes of genetic testing. The future of policymaking can be anticipated to be as dynamic and far-reaching as the fi eld of healthcare genomics itself. Whether policymaking, in the end, will keep up with science and whether it will facilitate or hamper the institutionalization of personalized medicine and dentistry are yet to be seen.