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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: OPHS Press Office

Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2009 (202) 205-0143

**Surgeon General's New Family Health History Tool Is Released,**

**Ready for "21^st^ Century Medicine"**

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services today released an
updated and improved version of the Surgeon General's Internet-based
family health history tool. The new tool makes it easier for consumers
to assemble and share family health history information. It can also
help practitioners make better use of health history information so they
can provide more informed and personalized care for their patients.

"This valuable tool can put family histories to work to improve patient
well-being and the quality of care," HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said.
"The tool is built on health information technology standards that make
it more convenient for consumers and more useful for practitioners. It
is ready for use in electronic health records. And its software code
will be openly available to other health organizations, so they can
customize and build on its standards base."

"Family history has always been an important part of good health care,
but it has been underused," said Acting Surgeon General Steven Galson, a
rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service. "Today, with our growing
knowledge of genetics, family history is becoming even more important.
The new tool will help consumers and clinicians alike. It will also
serve as a platform for developing new risk assessment software that
will help in screening and prevention of cancer, heart disease,
diabetes, and other conditions."

Key features of the new version of the Surgeon General's My Family
Health Portrait include:

-   [Convenience]{.underline} -- Consumers can access the tool easily on
    the Web. Completing the family health history profile typically
    takes 15-20 minutes. Consumers should not have to keep filling out
    different health history forms for different practitioners.
    Information is easily updated or amended.

-   [Consumer control and privacy]{.underline} -- The family health
    history tool gives consumers access to software that builds a family
    health tree. But the personal information entered during the use of
    the tool is not kept by a government or other site. Consumers
    download their information to their own computer. From there, they
    have control over how the information is used.

-   [Sharing]{.underline} -- Because the information is in electronic
    form, it can be easily shared with relatives or with practitioners.
    Relatives can add to the information, and a special re-indexing
    feature helps relatives easily start their own history based on data
    in a history they received. Practitioners can help consumers
    understand and use their information.

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-   [EHR-ready, Decision support-ready]{.underline} -- Because the new
    tool is based on commonly used standards, the information it
    generates is ready for use in electronic health records and personal
    health records. It can be used in developing clinical decision
    software, which helps the practitioner understand and make the most
    use of family health information.

-   [Personalization of care]{.underline} -- Family history information
    can help alert practitioners and patients to patient-specific
    susceptibilities.

-   [Downloadable, customizable]{.underline} -- The code for the new
    tool is openly available for others to adopt. Health organizations
    are invited to download and customize, using the tool under their
    own brand and adding features that serve their needs. Developers may
    also use the code to create new risk assessment software tools.

The first adopter of the HHS-developed tool is the National Institute of
Genomic Medicine of Mexico (INMEGEN). Dr. Gerardo Jimenez-Sanchez,
director general of the institute, will release the Mexican
Spanish-language version of the tool in Mexico City this month. The
Mexican family health history tool will be available on the INMEGEN Web
site, [http://www.inmegen.gob.mx](http://www.inmegen.gob.mx/).

The Indian Health Service, an agency of HHS that was instrumental in
developing the new Surgeon General tool, will also adopt it into the IHS
care system.

One organization saying it will link to the new tool is the Lance
Armstrong Foundation (LAF), a cancer advocacy organization.  "A strong
family health history tool can be an important element for guiding
medical decision-making, especially in the area of cancer screening,
prevention and early detection," said LAF founder and chairman Lance
Armstrong.  "This tool will further the capabilities of electronic
health records and takes a significant step toward improving clinical
care."

The Surgeon General's My Family Health Portrait was originally launched
in 2004, but the first version was not standards-based. The new tool was
developed under Secretary Leavitt's Initiative on Personalized Health
Care. It will be hosted by the National Cancer Institute, where the
caBIG® initiative is pioneering health IT networks and software sharing.
A ready process for organizations to download the family health history
code is at <https://gforge.nci.nih.gov/projects/fhh>.

The Surgeon General's new My Family Health Portrait tool is located at
[https://familyhistory.hhs.gov](https://familyhistory.hhs.gov/). In
addition, a presentation of sample risk assessment tools under
development can be viewed at
<http://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?live=7297> .

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Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are
available at [*http://www.hhs.gov/news*](http://www.hhs.gov/news).