Objectives: Family archives play a crucial role in the practice of family medicine as they not only help physicians examine the influence of family health history on patients but also serve as effective training materials for family medicine residents. However, access to digitalized family archives has remained limited.
Methods: "Family archive(s)" OR "family file(s)" were adopted as keywords to search related papers in PubMed and Airiti Library, using ASUS notebook LAPTOP-TSDMU3MP, equipped with Intel Core i7-1165G7 2.80GHz processor, 32GB RAM, running Windows 11, 64-bit, and Microsoft 365 software’s Excel VBA supplemented by artificial intelligence (AI). The old version of Excel was used to conduct post-digitalization tests.
Results: Most of the data can be selected using menus after design and subsequent optimization. The "function panel" can be used to design a tailored User Form, and different function keys can be programmed to enhance user friendliness. Excel cells are available for transcribing issues requiring attention, helping achieving maximum space efficiency. Formulas are developed, with voice function provided, to automatically calculate the patient’s APGAR score and assess family functions. Pedigree can be drawn and modified directly on built-in templates, and parts of the pedigree diagram can be automatically completed by entering the patient’s sex and marital status. Clicking "Name" will automatically change the worksheet name to that of the patient, forming a family file directory on the first worksheet (Index). Clicking the worksheet name (or the name of the patient) produces the corresponding family file for quick query or modification.
Conclusions: The digitalized family archives by Excel, marked with maximum space efficiency, greatly benefits the clinical practice of family physicians by facilitating an array of AI-like automation functions, including quick identification and cross-reference of the patient’s family data and APGAR assessment of family function, automatic pedigree drawing based the patient’s sex and marital status, and even provision of recommendation for disease screening. Furthermore, some of the information technology design methods mentioned in this article, supplemented by AI technology, can also be used as a reference for self-study or for beginners of programming languages.