Data is clinically actionable when it has medical or personal decision-making utility, particularly when it indicates the need for further diagnostic or preventive measures or when an alternative treatment is available.
Examples of actionable, non-urgent results are:
- a Hemoglobin AIC (or HbA1c) blood test, a measure of average blood sugar, is above normal, and may indicate diabetes or pre-diabetes.
- genetic screening of an individual who has been personally unaffected by cancer returns the presence of BRCA1, a breast cancer susceptibility gene.
- Multi-Regional Clinical Trials-MRCT Center of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard. Return of Individual Research Results: https://mrctcenter.org/return-of-individual-results/how-to-return-irr/how-to- return/actionable/
