Studies from around the world show the importance of collecting and knowing histories to get good medical care and to have good health. Studies reveal that conditions and diseases can be missed when adequate and essential history is omitted during a physical examination by a physician in a doctor office. ^{[1] [2]}

Comprehensive accurate histories are needed to identify risk, make diagnoses, and save time, suffering, and money. Time constraints reduce opportunities for accurate and more comprehensive histories to be collected by physicians and healthcare professionals. Their time costs money.

Studies suggest, "Physicians using electronic health records preferentially structure interviews around data-gathering demands rather than patients' own narrated accounts". ^{[3] [4]} This results in lost opportunities for gathering histories and patients' powerful stories. Screening to gather an individual's history is a more sensitive tool than the physical examination. Cursory examination often fails to uncover problems. ^[5][6]

In the absence of genetic testing, studies suggest that family history can be used as a tool to form risk into layers for common chronic diseases; thereby identifying individuals with increased disease susceptibility. ^[7] High-risk people are missed by their primary care physicians due to lack of genetic evaluation. ^[8]

HiGS histories can enable the 'ferreting-out' of potential problems and risk factors, supplying individuals with a missing piece of health management and healthcare. This is needed since time in doctor offices has become limited, resulting in essential thorough histories not being collected and risk missed. Inner Reach® Corporation is a Stewardship for Humanity™ that carefully manages and cares for your history information with HiGS.

References:

1.	Corrado, D. Et al; "Trends in Sudden Cardiovascular Death in Young Competitive Athletes After Implementation of a Preparticipation Screening Program". Journal of the American Medical Association. 2006;296:1593-1601.
2.	"What is a good physical exam? - Preventive Medicine". Harvard Health Letter. July, 1997
3.	Patel VL, Arocha JF, Kushniruk AW. "Patients' and physicians' understanding of health and biomedical concepts: relationship to the design of EMR systems". Journal of Biomedical Informatics. 2002;35:8-16
4.	Makoul G, Curry RH, Tang PC. "The use of electronic medical records: communication patterns in outpatient encounters". Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 2001;8:610-615.
5.	Krowchuk, D.P. "The preparticipation athletic examination: a closer look". Pediatric Annals. 1997;26:37-49
6.	Abdulla, A.S; Abdulla, F. "The pre-participation evaluation of athletes". The Middle East Journal of Family Medicine. June/July 2007. Volume 5; Issue 4/5: 23-24
7.	Paula W. Yoon, ScD, MPH et al; "Can Family History Be Used as a Tool for Public Health and Preventive Medicine?" Genetics in Medicine. 2002; 4(4):304-310
8.	Hayflick, S.J.; Eiff, M.P.; Carpenter, L.; Steinberger, J. "Primary care physician's utilization and perceptions of genetic services". Genetics in Medicine. 1998; 1: 13-22.