Linking IT, health history and the holidays
Acting Surgeon General Boris D. Lushniak, MD, MPH, has designated Thanksgiving as “Family Health History Day” and shares a new tool designed to help people assemble their family health history.
Writing on the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT's blog, Health IT Buzz, Lushniak says, "The more you understand about your family health history, the more you and your healthcare provider can predict your risk for health problems and identify screening and treatment options that are best for you."
He encourages people to log into My Family Health Portrait on the holiday.
Family health histories will remain private and won't be saved on a government computer or website because people can save their histories to a local storage area. Lushniak notes that Microsoft Healthvault, a cloud platform, is compatible with some EHRs and PHRs, making it easy to send an entire family health history to a participating healthcare provider and incorporate it into a patient’s HealthVault EHR account.
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.