Organizing My Medical Records and Advice for Others
Whether you are a chronic illness patient or someone who just has a Type A personality, I feel organization is important. There are a lot of advantages to keeping detailed and organized files and medical records.
- Helps switching to new providers much easier.
- One can easily keep things in chronological order.
- You can sort through to find what treatments/medications you have previously taken.
- You will have all important information for yourself.
How do I keep my paper records?
I have always been that person who prefers things on paper. I know there are programs that can help with record keeping, but I do the good ole paper trail as number one. Most of my providers have online electronic health records (EHR) such as MyChart. Whenever I start with a physician’s office, I get the access code to view/print my health records. I do not print every single document, but if it is a surgery, documentation of new health condition, or anything else I feel is crucial, I print those out.
Another thing I like to have on paper are emergency room visits. Most of the time, they give you the discharge summary when you leave. If you want more information like x-ray reports, labs, or full treating summary, those will be available online to view/print. Be sure you have access to inpatient hospitalization records also. They will have all your inpatient medications, vitals, surgeries, and notes from all providers.
How do I organize my paper records?
With the printed form of my medical documents, those are organized according to conditions. As someone with chronic illness, I see lots of providers. Having a file cabinet can help with the organization. I have binders and folders, to hold these records. Each one is labeled with the corresponding specialty: neurology, gastroenterology, hematology, cardiology, etc. Labeling them makes it easy to find them when a provider wants to see a particular document, or, I need to take a photo of a report, to send to another provider.
Having paper copies of documents is great because my primary doctor has a hard time getting records from my other providers. They are civilian, but she is not. I usually take a photo of the paper copy and send it to her in their health messaging system.
How do I keep a health history log?
I do not use any special program to organize my medical records. I love the simplicity of just keeping a running log of my health history in a Microsoft Word Document. I started this many years ago. It has valuable information included. I do not have all information included, but, has the following:
- Where/how I grew up (may be important in diagnosis)
- Childhood: surgeries/infections/overall health until I was 18
- Military: where stationed/deployed/health while active
- All medications: who prescribed/when started-ended and doses
- Lists all inpatient admissions: dates/reason for admission/tests/inpatient medications
- Includes surgeries/where done/what doctor
- For recurrent infections: Infection is listed once, but keep adding dates for the next treatment and doctor that gave the treatment
- All diagnoses with date/doctor
When something changes, like a medication is stopped, changed, or a reaction, I go back into the document and make the necessary change. This is a running document, so I am always adding new treatments, etc. to it.
Having a word document lets me send it to a provider when they need to see the whole picture. I have printed it for a few doctors as well. I have had several doctors state they have never seen a patient bring something so put together to them. It is saved to my computer and Google Drive.
How can you start?
If you want to organize your records, take it one step at a time. I would start with the provider that you determine is most important. Start gathering those in a folder, or use a system already in place. Do not get upset if it seems like there is a lot of information. Just dedicate a little time each day or week until you have it the way you like.
There are now applications (apps) and software that can be used to make this easy for anyone. One such app, for android, is “MedClin.” I have never used it, but did see on the Google Play Store. It is rated at a 4.0 with over 100K downloads. If I did want to change to using an app, I think this would be one that I would try. It has information such as:
- Medical history
- Family history
- Medications
- Lab tests
- Vaccines
- Storing Glucose/BP
Do you organize your medical records? Yes/No? I’m interested in the system that others use for this.
Join the conversation