The U.S. healthcare system is failing to screen for and diagnose individuals with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH). In fact, 9 out of 10 individuals born with FH today are undiagnosed, putting them and their families at grave risk for heart disease.

To accelerate the diagnosis of individuals with FH, the Family Heart Foundation developed the novel FIND FH^® (FLAG, IDENTIFY, NETWORK, DELIVER FH) initiative. FIND FH leverages precision screening — machine learning and big data — to flag individuals with probable FH.

Today, npj Digital Medicine published new data demonstrating that precision screening is highly effective. The research conducted in collaboration with the Family Heart Foundation and Stanford University School of Medicine showed that the screening algorithm substantially reduced the number of people needed to be screened to find individuals with FH.

In addition, the Family Heart Foundation today announced the expansion of the FIND FH program to identify people living with Homozygous FH (HoFH) who may still be undiagnosed to connect them with expert care and support. HoFH is a more severe form of FH. Free confirmatory genetic testing and counseling services are being offered as part of FIND HoFH, through a collaboration with Invitae and Genome Medical.

“Familial hypercholesterolemia is a common life-threatening genetic disorder that is vastly under-diagnosed across the U.S. healthcare system. FIND FH is a precision screening tool that addresses this gap in care, by leveraging the latest cutting-edge technology to identify adults and children born with FH, who have historically fallen through the cracks.”

– Katherine Wilemon
Family Heart Foundation Founder & CEO

The screening algorithm correctly identified – 84% of the time – individuals with the highest probability of having FH.

Kelly Myers, Family Heart Foundation’s Chief Technology Officer, explains FIND FH.

Interested in “finding” individuals with FH in your area? Check out the FIND FH heat map.