title: Securing and Documenting Cancer Family History in the Age of the Electronic Medical Record.
abstract: Family health history is one of the least expensive, most useful, and most underused methods available to conduct assessments of the genetic aspect of a condition or to target the need for a genetic evaluation. This article introduces to the surgical oncologist the reason and process of collecting family history information. As medical records shift from paper to electronic formats, pedigree drawings are not readily available within the electronic health records. International efforts are underway to develop searchable, updatable, and interoperable formats that can collect family history information to inform clinical decision support for genetic risk assessment.
authors.affiliation: Genomic Medicine Service, SLC VA Medical Center, 500 Foothill Drive, Salt Lake City, UT 84148, USA. Electronic address: vickie.venne@va.gov.
authors.forename: Vickie L
authors.initials: VL
authors.lastname: Venne
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, 10833 Le Conte Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA; Medical Genetics, VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, 11301 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90073, USA.
authors.forename: Maren T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Scheuner
mesh_terms: D004282:Documentation / Q000592:standards*; D005192:Family Health; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D006801:Humans; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D018570:Risk Assessment
keywords: Electronic medical records; Family health history; Genetic risk assessment; Pedigree