A Case Study on Integrating a Genealogy Database into a Consumer-Facing Family Health History Tool.

In this study we integrated family history data from the FamilySearch.org genealogy database with a consumerfacing, family health history (FHH) tool: OurFamilyHealth. A data import plug-in was developed to 1) retrieve family history data from FamilySearch.org, and 2) convert them into an internal FHH data model for clinical use in OurFamilyHealth. We successfully translated between the two models and demonstrated the feasibility of system integration. We anticipate that adding this feature will make it easier for our patients to enter rich FHH data. Background OurFamilyHealth is a locally-developed FHH tool used at Intermountain Healthcare. Currently it provides two methods for patients to enter family members, manually or through uploading a GEDCOM (GEnealogical Data COMmunication) formatted genealogy file. FamilySearch.org is a worldwide genealogy database that provides an application programming interface (API) allowing external applications to access its family history data via the web. Through OurFamilyHealth’s use of this API, a patient who has already entered family history in FamilySearch can provide authorization to directly import his/her data into OurFamilyHealth as a starting point for entering FHH.