Friday, May 9, 2025
5/9/2025
Community Project Funding/Congressionally Directed Spending - Construction - Nicklaus Children’s Hospital is one of the few children’s hospitals nationwide offering a Personalized Medicine program. The Personalized Medicine Initiative (PMI) focuses on tailoring medical care to each child’s individual characteristics, including genomics, environment, culture, and social context. At Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, the PMI brings innovative technology to the bedside and implements the latest scientific research into the standard of care. It helps diagnose rare genetic diseases and shorten lengthy diagnostic odysseys. It finds personalized cancer treatments for children with recurrent cancers when multiple chemotherapy treatments have failed. The goal of personalized and precision medicine is to implement this strategy broadly in medical care, focusing on selecting the right treatment, reducing the risk of complications, and improving health. Pharmacogenomics (PGx) is one of the most promising directions for implementing of precision medicine, as it focuses on the effects of genetic variation on drug response. As is the case with genetic testing, PGx test results can have lifelong benefits. By enabling the identification of the right drug at the right dose at the right time, PGx can reduce patient adverse events and improve clinical outcomes. To address these challenges, Nicklaus Children’s Hospital has started a PGx Program. This program rests on a solid foundation and involves the four vital infrastructure components: information technology, pharmacy, clinical care providers, and precision medicine laboratory. The fully realized PGx program will ensure the ability of providers to assimilate PGx into their practices. The program will start a clinical implementation pilot, offering pre-emptive PGx testing to up to 1000 individuals taking the medication, which metabolism is affected by genetics. The testing will be performed on a newly established precision medicine platform, and results will be integrated into the medical records. The program will host a PGx clinic, providing services to the patients and outreach and education initiatives for patients and providers. During the clinic hours, patients will receive a consultation on their PGx testing results and obtain treatment recommendations. This approach will lead to a direct impact on clinical practice and health outcomes in multiple medical specialties. We also expect that at least half of the patients benefiting from the PGx program will enroll in Nicklaus Children’s Biobank, donating biospecimens and data for future health outcomes and cost-effectiveness research. The PMI and PGx programs described above are nationwide leaders in their fields – shining examples of the value that Nicklaus Children’s brings to South Florida’s healthcare landscape. With these funds, Nicklaus Children’s Hospital will obtain the equipment and technology necessary to provide interventions with lifelong implications; useful, actionable medical information for patients and their parents that can have lifesaving and life-enhancing impacts at any age.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).