Family member health condition(s) that are relevant to a patient's care.

Data Element
Family Health History
Description (*Please confirm or update this field for the new USCDI version*)

Family member health condition(s) that are relevant to a patient's care.

Applicable Vocabulary Standard(s)

Applicable Standards (*Please confirm or update this field for the new USCDI version*)
  • SNOMED Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) U.S. Edition, March 2025 Release
  • International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) 2025
Submitted By: Al Taylor / ONC
Data Element Information
Data Element Description This data element captures relevant coded family health history of at least first degree relatives of the patient
Use Case Description(s)
Use Case Description Family Health History is an element of patient health data capturing relevant coded health data of a patient's family. The ONC certification criteria "§170.315(a)(12) Family health history" is already established to capture this data element using SNOMED CT.
Estimate the breadth of applicability of the use case(s) for this data element Current users of 552 products of health information technology certified to the ONC 2015 or Cures Update to 2015 certification criteria: The health IT permits users to record, change, and access a patient’s family health history according to the September 2015 Release of SNOMED CT®, U.S. Edition.
Link to use case project page https://www.healthit.gov/test-method/family-health-history
Healthcare Aims
  • Improving patient experience of care (quality and/or satisfaction)
  • Improving the health of populations
Maturity of Use and Technical Specifications for Data Element
Applicable Standard(s) SNOMED CT is the baseline standard to capture this data element, although health IT developers are allowed to use other standards, such as LOINC, to capture elements of family health history
Additional Specifications N/A
Current Use This data element has been used at scale between multiple different production environments to support the majority of anticipated stakeholders
Supporting Artifacts Based on certification of 552 out of 921 products certified to any 2015 or 2015 Cures Update criteria are certified to §170.315(a)(12) Family health history.
Extent of exchange 5 or more. This data element has been tested at scale between multiple different production environments to support the majority of anticipated stakeholders.
Supporting Artifacts https://www.hl7.org/fhir/familymemberhistory.html
Family History Section (V3) of CCDA R2.1 (2.16.840.1.113883.10.20.22.2.15:2015-08-01)
Potential Challenges
Restrictions on Standardization (e.g. proprietary code) None.
Restrictions on Use (e.g. licensing, user fees) None
Privacy and Security Concerns No unique P&S concerns
Estimate of Overall Burden This data element is already fully implemented in the majority of certified health IT products under the §170.315(a)(12) Family health history certification criteris
ASTP Evaluation Details
Each submitted Data Element has been evaluated based on the following criteria. The overall Level classification is a composite of the maturity based on these individual criteria. This information can be used to identify areas that require additional work to raise the overall classification level and consideration for inclusion in future versions of USCDI
Criterion #1
Maturity - Current Standards		 Level 2 - Data element is represented by a terminology standard or SDO-balloted technical specification or implementation guide.
Criterion #2
Maturity - Current Use 		Level 2 - Data element is captured, stored, or accessed in multiple production EHRs or other HIT modules from more than one developer.
Criterion #3
Maturity - Current Exchange		 Level 1 - Data element is electronically exchanged between two production EHRs or other HIT modules using available interoperability standards.
Criterion #4
Use Case(s) - Breadth of Applicability		 Level 2 - Use cases apply to most care settings or specialties.

Comment

Submitted by jkegerize on

ACLA Comment for USCDI v6: Family Health History

The American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA) appreciates the opportunity to comment on the Family Health History. We would like to express our support; however, ACLA suggests inclusion of the relationship with the patient as this is used for some laboratories Ask on Order Entries (AOEs) for certain tests.

Submitted by mturchioe on

ANI's comment on USCDI v6: Family health history

The Alliance for Nursing Informatics (ANI) supports the inclusion of this data element and adds our comments below. Please see previously submitted ANI comments for additional recommendations.

  • We support this inclusion but recommend constraining to SNOMED concept sets with explicit “family history” context (e.g., SNOMED 57177007). 
  • Additionally, we encourage consideration of how the integration of genomics data will interact with this data element. At a minimum, provide a roadmap for future integration of genomic-related family history insights.

Submitted by david_rocha on

"Family Health History" listed as a data class and data element

"Family Health History" listed as a data class and data element 

This could be an issue if ASTP decided to transform USCDI into an ontology.

In Protege, for example, I would not be able to add the data element since it has the exact same name, spelling, and formatting.

The data element should be more specific than the data class.

Submitted by rdillaire on

CMS-CCSQ Sup. for Family Health History data element for USCDIv6

Data Element: Family Health History (Level 2)

  1. Recommendation: Add the Family Health History data element to Final USCDI v6.
  2. Rationale: The Family Health History data element is defined as “a patient's family health history in accordance with the familial concepts or expressions included in, at a minimum, the version of the standard in §70.207(a)(12)” and is one of the most fundamental portions of a person’s medical history. This data element is already fully implemented in most certified health IT products under the §70.315(a)(12) Family Health History certification criterion. This data element enables a user to record, change, and access information about a patient’s first degree relative within the said patient’s record. SNOMED CT is the baseline standard to capture this data element, although health IT developers are allowed to use other standards, such as LOINC, to capture elements of family health history.

Submitted by Steven.Lane on

Support for Family Health History in USCDI

Family Health History information is critical to clinicians' ability to personalize care based on individual risk factors and to understand a patient in the context of their family system.  While some clinicians will add diagnoses corresponding to specific items related to family health history or circumstances to a patient's problem list, this is done inconsistently and not all relevant items exist in the ICD hierarchy.  Also, as the industry moves increasingly toward utilizing and analyzing EHI with new analytical tools, such as AI and ML, the value of codified family health history to inform actionable insights will continue to increase. 

Submitted by aphillips@imoh… on

Level 2 Data Class: Family Health History

Level 2 Data Class: Family Health History

Level 2 Data Element: Family Health History[AK1] 

 

IMO supports the inclusion of the proposed Level 2 Data Class for Family Health History and the specified level 2 data element for Family Health History.  The data class and data element are currently specified as part of ONC HIT certification criteria, and SNOMED CT and LOINC are widely implemented to capture family health history.

 

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