Emergency departments hold a wealth of information on family trees

While websites such as Ancestry have helped millions of people around the world piece together the puzzle of their family tree and hereditary conditions, new research has found emergency departments at hospitals may be more effective when it comes to finding extensive family history.

The study, published in the Cell Press Journal by researchers at Columbia University in the United States, found emergency departments were particularly useful because of the information they have on patients. In addition to the basics such as first and last names, addresses, phone numbers and insurance information, these departments also contain next-of-kin information. In many cases, the patient lists someone who is a blood relative as their next-of-kin, information researchers believe could help put together extensive family trees and provide valuable health information.

In addition to helping people discover distant relatives, the information also has the potential to use the information when it comes to determining hereditary medical conditions.

According to study author Fernanda Polubriaginof, it’s one of the first times research has linked medical information and electronic health records (EHRs) in emergency departments to family trees.

“This is the first time family pedigrees have been built from EHRs,” Polubriaginof said in a statement. “It’s also the largest study ever of the heritability of traits using EHRs.”

For the study, researchers used an algorithm which matched up people’s first and last names, addresses, and phone numbers. In addition, they researched how a patient was related to their emergency contact and were able to identify 7.4 million familial connections as a result.

With the database they created, researchers discovered 500 different disease characteristics. These related to a variety of traits including blood disorders, skin diseases, and mental health conditions.

Senior study author Nicholas Tatonetti said the study was the first of many to come.

“This is really exciting new research, and it’s only the beginning of these kinds of studies,” Tatonetti said. “We identified the heritability of 400 traits that have never been looked at in this way before. Until now, we didn’t know they were heritable. This research opens up opportunities for many more discoveries.”

Researchers are hopeful the new data will shine light on how genetic differences play a role in many common health conditions. Researchers also note the new information is useful because it uses information from people with different backgrounds and ethnicities.

“The majority of research on disease heritability has been done in Caucasians of mostly northern European descent,” Polubriaginof said. “This dataset will allow us for the first time to compute whether there are differences in other races and ethnicities.”

Because of current privacy rules, it is unlikely the data can be used for anything beyond research purposes.

“It’s easy to get excited about clinical utility, but we’re not there yet,” Tatonetti explained. “However, in the future, with proper consent, you could imagine information like this being shared with clinicians so they can alert their patients about potential health risks and additional screenings they may need to undergo. It could be very useful for identifying conditions like type 2 diabetes and celiac disease.”

There are hopes the algorithm will be made available to other hospitals and scientists for further tests to be conducted.

In Australia, every Australian will automatically be given a digital My Health Record – an online summary of personal health information, uploaded by care providers – this year. This will be similar to the EHRs currently used in the United States.

What do you think? Would you be comfortable with your personal health data being used to help people complete their family tree and assist with medical diagnoses?