Genetic Counseling Using Workflow-based EMRs

Widespread use of genetic tests for medical treatment and clinical genetic counseling–as a cost-effective treatment for an increasing number of hereditary disorders–has led to study of privacy and disclosure issues, and has compelled governments to limit disclosure of test results. To the best of our knowledge, no clinical workflows for genetic counseling apply applicable information disclosure laws have been documented and enforced in Electronic Medical Records (EMRs). To fill this void, herein we model a representative genetic counseling workflow and show how to simultaneously enforce privacy and informed consents in an open-source EMR. Our prototype provides workflow-guided counseling as well as consent management that enforces state and federal lawcompliant genetic information sharing.