Ask HN: Can someone please create this: Family Medical History | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Can someone please create this: Family Medical History

2 pointssixQuarks6 comments

It's so ridiculous when you visit a doctor and they ask about your family history. I don't know all the ailments my extended family has and I don't even have that much family.<p>I recently found out that some of my family members have thyroid issues, which explains some symptoms I've been going through.<p>There should be a private network where family members can input all their ailments (anonymously if they want), and then you can see what you're at risk for.<p>For those family members who have already passed away (or don't use computers), other family members can input what they know they had.<p>This would be a huge preventative measure. What do you guys think?

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Simple goes a long way when it comes to dealing with healthcare information. In my practice, I created a google form that patients can fill out and then have access to whenever they need it (for sharing with other providers for example). It's not elegant, but it's easy, flexible, and it fundamentally shifts control of the patient record from the doctor to the patient. Happy to share a customizable template if anyone is interested.

What I'm thinking about goes way beyond regular patient information. I'm thinking along the lines of a "family medical history social network".

For example, I want it to be where family members can input small ailments, such as "I suffer from cold hands and feet". Now imagine a few other relatives happen to put this down as well. This is not something that you would ever reveal in a regular doctor medical history report, but something like this could, say, indicate that there are circulation issues running in the family.

That's just an example I made up, but imagine the possibilities. The software should allow "privacy" options, so that if a family member is embarrassed to reveal an ailment, they can choose to make it private, however, the software will take that into account to see if there are patterns that it should alert you to.

I haven't brainstormed enough about this, but I just think this could be really useful in some way.

I think it's awesome, but better to do it through the doctors office than through patients, since most people aren't going to bother thinking about it until they're sick.

I guess there are privacy concerns and stuff, but seriously. It blows my mind that I have to answer the same questions every time I go to a doctor. In the 21st century, why on earth isn't all this stuff on file somewhere for any doctor in the world to access?

I actually think it will work better as a "private family network". All it would take is one person to start it, then email family members and tell them to add whatever info they can. There is a viral effect to it.

Each family member that joins will see themselves as the "center" node, with branches connecting them to their closest relatives.

The software should be smart enough to connect each member intelligently. So let's say you enter your grandmother's information, the software will ask: mother's side or father's side. then will create an empty node for your parents, and link it through them to your grandmother. (make sense?).

Anyway, there's a bunch of cool things you can do with it.

Interesting. I can build a Proof of Concept for this with Neo4j. Privacy would be an issue. Do doctors don't need to know who in your family had issues, or just that someone related to you by DNA had issues? If you have mock-ups of how it would work and can commit to spending some time, I'll reciprocate. Tired of finding ways to help sell crap to people, rather work on ways to help people stay healthy.

I don't have mockups, it's just something I've been thinking about, but have left on the backburner for so long, I know I'll never get around to it. But it could potentially be of help to so many people, that I don't want to keep the idea for myself.

If you're really serious, I can help with it. I specialize in product development and marketing. I know how to get PR, have attracted millions of visitors to web sites, so I think if this thing is built, I can get good publicity for it.

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