Interdisciplinary healthcare teams have become the new system for patient care delivery in today’s multifaceted healthcare environment, especially in cases of complex rare diseases.
With Genetic Testing becoming an essential part of clinical practice, GeneAura works closely with Clinicians to understand their needs and support their day to day clinical practice by disseminating information on innumerable genetic conditions and the current testing options.
Our aim is to promote high standards in genetic counseling with the help of a qualified health care team that includes certified genetic counselors.
The Genetic Counseling profession is a rather new medical specialty that has evolved over time keeping up with the advancements in the clinical genetics field. A complete genetic counseling session will offer personalised healthcare plans for clients and families by facilitating informed decision-making regarding their genetic health.
Genetic Counselors will address the psychosocial issues associated with complex diagnosis, prognosis, reproductive planning and risk to family members for both simple and complex disorders.
Most genetic counselors see clients in a clinic or hospital setting and often work together with obstetricians, oncologists, paediatricians, cardiology and neurology.
A client may be referred to a genetic counselor by a clinician to discuss family history and genetic risks or for pre-/ post- genetic testing counseling. A genetic counselor will discuss the various testing options and its implications, review alterations in genes/chromosomes, and facilitate the testing process if the client consents. Post- testing, the genetic counselor will review the results with the clinician and the client to coordinate appropriate care.
One of the most significant features of the counseling process is that the summary of the counseling session is provided with recommendations in writing to the client with a copy to the referring clinician.
In clinical practice, genetic counselors and clinicians work side-by-side as an actual genomic healthcare team. The counselor will collect and integrate information (personal medical history and family history), communicate results, provide counseling that answers the questions of clients and offer support and guidance. The counseling session will also include interpretation of clinical symptoms, physical examination and integration of such information with genetic information for the establishment of a differential diagnosis. Once a diagnosis has been identified, the genetic counselor will communicate the findings to the clinician and the client which will also include information on risk for other family members. This will facilitate the clinician’s role and diagnosis for medical treatment and management plan.
Genetic counselors will be important for the management of unknown, rare, minor risk and major risk variants in complex diseases, as well as for identifying findings that present new insights to strengthen clinical decision making. They facilitate communication between healthcare professionals and their patients to ensure that genetic testing is used wisely and correctly, to provide improved care and to significantly reduce costs of inappropriate testing.
Genetic Counselors provide emotional support and provide a more holistic approach of psychosocial and familial dimensions of genetic concerns to the interdisciplinary healthcare team.