Health Heritage
Knowledge of our genetic inheritance can often help predict common diseases and conditions we may be at risk of developing during our lifetime. At NorthShore, we will soon be providing our patients and their family members with a new online application—Health Heritage—designed to let patients easily create a family medical history and generate reports that can be used to better interpret and understand their genetic risks.
By building an electronic family medical history tree through Health Heritage, our patients can work in partnership with our team to gain insights into how genes and life experiences can impact and influence their health and well-being. These insights allow our team to determine possible risk of hereditary conditions and develop personalized surveillance plans and prevention measures.
Dr. Peter Hulick reviews medical information with patient Don Burzen
Health Heritage allows patients to:
- Retrieve personal medical information from their NorthShore medical record through their NorthShoreConnect account
- Review, add and update health information that relates to their risk of developing common inherited health conditions, such as cancer
- List family members and request them to share additional medical history information
- Transfer health information to relatives for use on their own Health Heritage-created family medical history trees
Our hope is that Health Heritage will provide our patients and their families with a powerful foundation to build personalized plans for improving their health. This secure, dynamic living document will become an essential part of the medical record and can be shared with our patients’ family and physicians for generations to come.
Health Heritage was designed and built by researchers and developers at NorthShore along with colleagues at the University of Virginia. Our NorthShore Medical Genetics team updated the system to employ the most current clinical recommendations.