How To-57: "How to Create Your Personal Health Record"

How to Create Your Personal Health Record

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Most people do not carry medical records when they leave home. They do not realize that in case of emergency(ICE), which no one can predict, these medical records can make a big difference. In fact, they could save a life. Previous medications, history of allergy to medications, and other significant medical or surgical history can help a physician to optimize treatment.

Steps

1. Questions to ask when creating your Personal Health Record
   
2. What kind of information do you store in a Personal Health Record?
   
• What information is relevant to their conditions?
  
• Who can help treat an illness?
  
3. Make a list of the following data:
   
• DEMOGRAPHICS- Your details about name,address,sex,age,emergency contact information along with health care provider and insurance details
  
• LIST OF MEDICATIONS-Current and past medications along with physician and pharmacy contact details also dosage of the Medical drugs taken.
  
• ALLERGIES -To medications,environment,food or another other substance.
  
• DIAGNOSIS / PROBLEM LIST-History of Diabetes,Hypertension or any other disease including duration and medications taken.
  
• HISTORY OF TESTS AND PROCEDURES-Investigation reports
  
• RECORD OF IMMUNIZATIONS-Childhood and also adult
  
• PERTINENT FAMILY MEDICAL HISTORY-close and immediate relatives
  
4. Collect the following relevant information from your health care provider
   
5. * History of any medical or surgical intervention should be collected from your health care provider.

Tips

• Make a list of all your pertinent personal health history and carry it along as paper document.
  
• Store these information in USB flash drive either as word document or pdf file along with all investigation reports scanned and also images stored.
  
• Insert a Medical emergency label on your personal health record file.
  
• Secure the documents with password protection.

Warnings

• The information provided on Internet should not be used to diagnose or treat any illness, disease, health problem, or metabolic disorder. Always consult your physician or health care provider before beginning any nutrition and/or exercise program and/or for medication or illness. In case of medical emergency call 911 or your local doctor

Things You'll Need

• USB drive
  
• Word Doc software
  
• Scanner
  
• Label

Related wikiHows

• How to Get a Copy of Your Medical Records
  
• How to Cope With a Diagnosis of Diabetes
  
• How to Be a Hospital Advocate
  
• How to Read a Doctor's Prescription

Sources and Citations

• Markle Foundation
  
• My PHRAHIMA website
  
• Rahul Shetty: Portable Digital Personal Health Record : To Bridge the Digital gap in Medical Information Storage of Individuals with Personal Health Records in Flash Drives. The Internet Journal of Health. 2007. Volume 5 Number 2.
  
• open medicdrive Comprehensive list of sources

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Create Your Personal Health Record. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Wikipedia article on "MEDICAL RECORD":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_record

Article on "PERSONAL MEDICAL RECORDS" from Medline Plus:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/personalmedicalrecords.html

Grateful thanks to wikiHow, Medline Plus and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.