Re: [Gnumed-devel] Family History tables

[Jim Busser]

On 2011-06-13, at 12:06 PM, Karsten Hilbert wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 11:45:45AM -0700, Jim Busser wrote:
> 
>> - we will agree "family" does not (in the EMR design)
>> include personally significant non-blood relatives (for
>> example "spouse") who we would normally keep in the
>> demographics' social network
> 
> I don't think that makes sense. "Family" is not well
> defined. Currently we are working on the following
> interpretation of family, called Family History:
> 
>       health risk modifiers in a unit of people in close
>       personal contact
> 
> Mostly, this will be genetic. Certain things can be
> non-genetic (say, "open TB of spouse" or "MRSA in
> neurodermitis of stepson").
> 
> Karsten

So if a patient is a student whose roommate gets pneumococcal meningitis, I 
agree it is very important, but I might disagree we would put this roommate 
(non-blood relative) in the family history.

I think the exposure goes into the health issues or into risk factors.

--Jim