FAQ – App
FamGenix App - FAQ
Getting Started
See our quick tips below on what to expect. For a more in-depth walkthrough of the app, visit our App User Guide.
FamGenix was created to guide you through collecting your family health history prior to your scheduled appointment, giving your clinician more time to discuss the impact of your family history on your health.
As you get started, you will be asked some questions about your own health and then about your family members and their health. Once you have gone through the initial questions, you will be able to view and change the information you entered.
Here’s some tips to make the process quicker and easier:
- Don’t feel like you have to enter everything at once. You can always log back in later and make changes.
- Enter all your family members, even if they don’t have any health conditions. Cousins, nieces and nephews, and other relatives can be added later by going to the family list from the home screen.
- For each person in the family, focus on entering any health conditions or diseases and genetic testing they might have had. Estimate the ages they were diagnosed the best that you can. It is also helpful to provide current ages or age at death for family members.
- Your clinician may ask you to focus on specific diseases or health conditions based on the reason you are being seen.
- You can also invite your family members so that they can provide additional information.
Check the Surveys section from the Home Screen for any specific surveys your clinician wants you to complete.
Once you’re done, you will have a digital health record of your family health history that you can access whenever you need it. This record should be updated at least once a year or whenever there is a new diagnosis in the family. Don’t forget to share with your family members so they can benefit from knowing their health history too!
General
Diseases can run in families. It can be because of genetics or the shared lifestyle and environmental factors that come with living together (such as diet, health and lifestyle habits, exposure to toxins, etc), or a combination of both. Recording your family health history is an important first step in discovering what diseases your family is most susceptible to, and then taking proactive steps with your health to prevent the occurrence of the disease.
The app will guide you in answering health questions and adding family members. It’s important to include all living and deceased blood relatives. Under each profile, you can also mark family members as twins or designate a different mother or father for half-siblings.
For each family member, include ages (or age at death), diseases (with age of diagnosis), and genetic testing results (if any were performed). With some diseases chosen, you will be asked additional questions. If you’re not sure on any details, you can add them later. You can also invite a family member to join the app and enter family health information themselves.
Your ancestry refers to your family’s (mother’s side and father’s side) country or region of origin. Your ethnicity refers to more broad categories of race.
Certain populations are shown to be more susceptible to certain hereditary diseases. These groups are factored into our risk model calculations.
Currently you cannot edit your email address or phone number yourself. You can submit a support request to us in order to do so.
Adding/Editing Family Members
During your initial on-boarding, the app will guide you to enter the number of family members (children, brothers/sisters, aunts/uncles). To add a family member later on:
- Go to Home, and select ‘Family’
- Then click ‘+’ button on any person in your family and choose the type of relative you want to add to them
Some clinicians will request you also add nephews/nieces and cousins, especially if they have a disease. You can add them after your initial on-boarding from the Home screen.
To add nephews/nieces:
- Go to Home, and select ‘Family’
- Then click ‘+’ button on the brother/sister in your family and add the number of children for them
To add cousins:
- Go to Home, and select ‘Family’
- Then click ‘+’ button on the aunt/uncle in your family and add the number of children for them
You can delete any family member by clicking the ‘Delete’ button at the bottom of any person’s profile.
- Go to Home, select ‘Family’, and choose a family member
- Select the ‘Delete Profile’ button at the bottom of that person’s profile.
If you have completed onboarding and have reached the ‘Home’ screen, you can add or edit any family member by choosing ‘Family’, then choosing the family member from the list. Selecting the ‘+’ button will allow you to add a family member.
It’s better to give approximate ages than to leave it blank for the most accurate assessment of disease risk. Ages can also affect whether you are qualified under health insurance to obtain further genetic counseling or genetic testing. For example, a close relative who has cancer at an early age (before age 50) can increase your cancer risk, rather than being diagnosed at a much later age.
By adding all of your relatives, it gives your clinician an indication of the prevalence of cancer in your family and can impact their assessment of your hereditary risk.
People who have a close family member with a gene mutation are at increased risk of inheriting the same gene mutation, thus increasing your risk of hereditary cancer. Your clinician can also use this information to tailor your recommendations.
Sharing
By inviting a family member, you are sending them a copy of your personal and family health information so they don’t have to re-enter it, and they can share additional health history with you.
- You can invite a family member by clicking ‘Invite’ from the Home screen or from a particular family member’s profile.
- You will be prompted to enter a mobile phone and email for that person to make sure it gets to the right person.
- Each family member you invite will be sent an email with instructions and a unique family code that can only be used by them to sign up as part of your family.
- After installing the app, the person chooses the ‘Sign up’ button on the login screen and enters the family code when prompted.
- Family member will then receive a 6-digit verification code via text message at the number you provided when inviting them and will be prompted to enter it in the app to confirm it is them.
You can re-invite someone by first going to the ‘Invite’ screen which has the list of all the family members you can invite. Tap the ‘Pending’ button next to the family member. It will prompt you if you want to cancel the invite. Select ‘Yes’. Then you will be able to select the ‘Invite’ button again to re-invite them.
You will be sent a notification each time a family member is invited to use the app. You decide whether or not to share your health information with that family member. If you decide not to share with them, that family member will not receive updates about your health from you or any other app user in the family. You can adjust these settings at any time under ‘Sharing Settings’.
When multiple people are using the app, you will receive a notification under the ‘Family Updates’ section on the Home screen for each change each person makes (if you choose to receive updates from that person). You can accept or reject any change. If you make any changes, notifications for each change is sent to all family members that you choose to share data with.
You can decide which family members to share with in ‘Sharing Settings’. While you are sharing with them, they’ll be notified of any changes you make to your data and vice-versa. You can accept or reject any changes from other family members. You can turn off sharing with any family member at any time. Family members do not get notified when you stop sharing with them.
If you don’t want to share a specific piece of information, then be sure to turn off sharing with all family members before entering the data.
If you were referred to the app by your healthcare provider, and they have an account with FamGenix, they will provide you their Clinician ID so you can be connected and share your family health history with them. If this is the case and you were not given a Clinician ID, then please contact your healthcare provider to receive it.
By consenting to share data with your clinician, your clinician will receive a copy of your family health history. Any future changes you make or that you approve are also sent to the clinician.
To stop sharing with a clinician, you can simply select them from your clinician list, then select the ‘Disconnect Clinician’ button.
Privacy
We may use information about how people use the app, and aggregated, de-identified data to help improve the app and services we provide. There may be opportunities for you to share your data for research in the future, but you can decide whether you want to contribute. You may check out the FamGenix Terms of Conditions and Privacy Policy for more information.
Completing Surveys
Your clinician may request that you also fill out the Cancer Risk Factor survey. This survey contains additional questions that can affect your risk of hereditary cancer. It also allows us to run certain risk models that can help us to further assess your risk.
Report an Issue
Found a bug or issue while using the FamGenix app? Help us resolve the issue by giving details on how you reproduced it, and we will respond to you within one business day. We are committed to regularly updating the app and fixing known bugs, so be sure you have updated to the latest version before reporting the error.