The Inclusive Family Health Initiative (IFHI) is a global effort to ensure that all patients—regardless of how their families were formed—are represented accurately in healthcare. The initiative began in 2019 after parents of donor-conceived children shared their experiences navigating a medical system that lacked a place to record their child’s genetic background. This gap often led to incomplete medical histories, repeated explanations, and missed opportunities for preventive care.

Recognizing this problem, IFHI was created to build clinical and data frameworks that allow genetic and conception-related information to be recorded accurately within medical records. The initiative’s first focus is the integration of inclusive kinship fields into electronic medical records (EMRs), ensuring that donor conception, adoption, and surrogacy captured in a standardized, inclusive way.

In collaboration with the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH), IFHI is piloting expanded EMR intake fields that reflect modern kinship structures and support more accurate clinical decision-making. The initiative's second focus is provider education—equipping healthcare professionals with the tools and language to support families formed through donor conception, adoption, and surrogacy.

In 2025, IFHI launched its first two provider toolkits—one for pediatricians and one for general practitioners—offering practical guidance on inclusive history-taking, sensitive communication, and supporting donor-conceived individuals in clinical settings. Additional toolkits for mental health providers, reproductive specialists, and other clinicians are currently in development. Together, these resources are helping to integrate inclusive family history practices into routine clinical care.

By combining systemic change and professional education, the Inclusive Family Health Initiative is redefining how family history is understood in medicine—promoting equitable, informed, and stigma-free care for every family.