Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Clinical Trial
. 2013 Dec;28(12):1558-64.
doi: 10.1007/s11606-013-2442-0. Epub 2013 Apr 16.

Comparing electronic health record portals to obtain patient-entered family health history in primary care

Michael F Murray  1 , Monica A Giovanni, Elissa Klinger, Elise George, Lucas Marinacci, George Getty, Phyllis Brawarsky, Beatriz Rocha, E John Orav, David W Bates, Jennifer S Haas
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

Comparing electronic health record portals to obtain patient-entered family health history in primary care

Michael F Murray et al. J Gen Intern Med. 2013 Dec.

Abstract

Background: There is growing interest in developing systems to overcome barriers for acquiring and interpreting family health histories in primary care.

Objective: To examine the capacity of three different electronic portals to collect family history from patients and deposit valid data in an electronic health record (EHR).

Design: Pilot trial.

Participants, intervention: Patients were enrolled from four primary care practices and were asked to collect family health history before a physical exam using either telephone-based interactive voice response (IVR) technology, a secure Internet portal, or a waiting room laptop computer, with portal assigned by practice. Intervention practices were compared to a "usual care" practice, where there was no standard workflow to document family history (663 participants in the three intervention arms were compared to 296 participants from the control practice).

Main measures: New documentation of any family history in a coded EHR field within 30 days of the visit. Secondary outcomes included participation rates and validity.

Key results: Demographics varied by clinic. Documentation of new family history data was significantly higher, but modest, in each of the three intervention clinics (7.5 % for IVR clinic, 20.3 % for laptop clinic, and 23.1 % for patient portal clinic) versus the control clinic (1.7 %). Patient-entered data on common conditions in first degree relatives was confirmed as valid by a genetic counselor for the majority of cases (ranging from 64 to 82 % in the different arms).

Conclusions: Within primary care practices, valid patient entered family health history data can be obtained electronically at higher rates than a standard of care that depends on provider-entered data. Further research is needed to determine how best to match different portals to individual patient preference, how the tools can best be integrated with provider workflow, and to assess how they impact the use of screening and prevention.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Example of coded family history fields available in the longitudinal medical record.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. Claassen L, Henneman L, Janssens AC, et al. Using family history information to promote healthy lifestyles and prevent diseases; a discussion of the evidence. BMC Publ Health. 2010;10:248. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-10-248. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sabatino SA, Habarta N, Baron RC, et al. Interventions to increase recommendation and delivery of screening for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers by healthcare providers systematic reviews of provider assessment and feedback and provider incentives. Am J Prev Med. 2008;35(1 Suppl):S67–S74. doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2008.04.008. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Awareness of family health history as a risk factor for disease--United States, 2004. Mmwr. 2004;53(44):1044–1047. - PubMed
    1. Yarnall KS, Pollak KI, Ostbye T, Krause KM, Michener JL. Primary care: is there enough time for prevention? Am J Public Health. 2003;93(4):635–641. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.93.4.635. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Murff HJ, Greevy RA, Syngal S. The comprehensiveness of family cancer history assessments in primary care. Community Genet. 2007;10(3):174–180. doi: 10.1159/000101759. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types