If you visit multiple doctors for different health problems then keeping a personal record about your visits, medications, and schedules can not only save time but can also help in making progress in the right direction. When we visit multiple doctors, there is always a chance of forgetting important points. However, doctors and hospitals do maintain an electronic version of your visit in their hospital management system, but that will not serve the purpose.
A personal health record is something like your personal diary that can help you to maintain a record of all the treatments and medications that you undergo. When we take many medicines for different illness, we can mentally keep track of all those only to an extent. Whereas, if we write down all our medical history right from the visit to doctor, medication allergies, symptoms and the type of improvements we are making, it becomes quite easy for us to correlate all the facts together and based on that we can also monitor our progress in the treatment. A personal health record need not be only about doctor’s advice, drugs, or medical history; you can also keep track of your diet plan, food allergies, and general health care regime that you follow. The advantage is your mind registers all these information and can make you adept in managing your health more efficiently. Here are the steps that can help you to create a personal health record:
1. Choose a proper format
Personal health record is for your own purpose, so the way you create it should be meaningful to you. Therefore, it is essential to invest proper amount of time to think and decide on a format that can help you to quickly access the information. Even though some hospitals provide pre-defined formats, you need to check whether it fits your need. Having both electronic format and paper-based format can help you a lot, as hospitals release information in both formats.
2. Start by requesting information from hospitals
You can start by requesting a copy of your health records from the hospital. If you visit multiple doctors then you need to plan and systematically collect all the medical records that you think are vital for you. Do not thrust yourself to collect all medical information at once. Whenever you visit your doctor, make sure to request for your medical record.
3. Collect vital records of the past
If you have many past records, then how do you decide which ones are important. It depends on the type of illness you had. If you had typhoid, two months back, and if you visit the same doctor now for some other illness, then getting the medical record for typhoid will actually help you in many ways. In the same way, you can request for records of past illness that were quite serious. However, if you have been undergoing treatment for an illness over a very long time, then it is enough to get the recent records and note it down in your personal diary.
4. Extract the data from the records
If the medical records contain too much technical terms, then some of us do not understand much of those by simply reading them. Also, if you have too much of aversion toward medical terminologies, then there is no use in simply copying the information from medical health records to your personal health record. In that case, you need to study your medical records with the assistance of a hospital staff and then write down in a way that can be more meaningful and sensible to you. The main purpose of personal health record is to be updated about your medical conditions. Therefore, the best way is to break down all those complex terms and write down in a way that can help you understand better. This approach also helps you to correlate and assimilate the information easily.
5. Choose the right format
Some hospitals provide predefined formats and guidelines for creating personal health records. You can either make use of that or create one on your own. There are two ways to go about maintaining the health records. You can either extract out important information from the health record or simply file all the medical records in a separate folder. Sometimes, following both ways can also be helpful.
Moreover, you can also choose to have your personal health records in electronic formats. This can be advantageous if you want to store medical information of all your family members, as you can access the information quickly. However, carrying that information each time to hospital can be an extra work. Most of the hospitals have release-of-information form that you have to submit to collect your health records. The processing time varies from hospital to hospital and usually takes about 60 days to receive your medical records. After you create the personal health record, you can carry that with you during your hospital visits. As your personal health records contain your personal information, it is essential to keep it safely.