Risk Assessment and Education
Partners
To address family history collection, interpretation, and application in busy primary care practices, NCHPEG is collaborating with the March of Dimes, Genetic Alliance, Harvard Partners, and the Health Resources and Services Administration to develop a novel family history tool that focuses on prenatal and neonatal health. The tool will help to improve health outcomes for the female patient, fetus, and family by providing clinical decision support and educational resources for risk assessment based on family history.
The Prenatal Family History and Genetic Risk Assessment Tool
This family history tool will be an adaptation of the Harvard Partners’ Hughes riskApps™, a cancer risk-assessment software. The partners also will incorporate elements of My Family Health Portrait, the Surgeon General’s family history tool, and professional guidelines for prenatal care, women’s health, and newborn genetic risk assessment.
To assist in family history risk assessment and promote education for the clinician and patient, the tool will:
- generate red-flags, risk assessments, a report/clinical record for physician, and a follow-up letter for physicians,
- provide decision-support algorithms that will highlight these genetic red flags for the provider,
- address cultural sensitivity and ethical issues related to family history collection and assessment,
- promote patient and provider education through embedded educational materials such as
- access to a continuing-education program focused on prenatal care and newborn screening, and
- dissemination of a grand-rounds program using prenatal case studies for provider education,
- be publicly available to providers and the public, and
- be compatible with electronic health records.
Timeline
We will pilot the family history tool in at least four clinical sites before public release at the end of 2012, testing the tool in diverse clinical settings and with diverse providers and patient populations, including underserved patient populations.
Download our one-page project fact sheet!
Questions? Want to get involved? Contact Emily Edelman.