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How to
Implement a Computer-based Personal Health
Record
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Implementing a personal health record (PHR) entails gathering
as much information about your past and current health and
organizing it in such a way that it can be easily retrievable
and reproducible for circumstances that might require its
use.
The starting point is to choose a personal health record which
will allow you to enter typed information as well as
information and official documents such as x-ray reports,
laboratory reports and electrocardiograms. Ideally, the program
should have a resource to allow you to learn more about your
medical condition(s) and should provide you with privacy and
security. Other desirable features include the ability to store
health information about your family members as well as
yourself, technical support in using the program, the ease of
transferring your health information to it and from it to your
health care provider(s) and flexibility in the reproduction of
the data. All these factors considered a computer-based
personal medical records software application is probably the
wisest choice.
After choosing a personal medical records software program and
installing it on your computer the next step involves locating
and gathering as many paper documents which you may have in
your home or elsewhere containing information about your
health. These documents can include immunization records,
prescription drug labels, prescription receipts, written
instructions from your doctor, notes taken by you during doctor
visits, office records you may have from your current or
previous physician(s), hospital bills, prescription receipts,
and copies of superbills from your doctor(s).
Once you have gathered as much information as possible
pertaining to your health it should then be entered into the
sections and subsections of the personal health record. The
basic informational entry process will require typing, but if
you want to include actual official reports such as x-rays,
laboratory tests, or electrocardiograms, those documents can be
scanned, then copied and pasted into your PHR. If you are
fairly technical and want to have some fun creating your
personal health record dictating the information using one of
the speech recognition software programs such as Dragon
NaturallySpeaking or ViaVoice is an alternative which is also
more efficient than typing. If you do not want to go out and
buy a speech recognition software program and you have one that
came with your computer this would be a good time to learn to
use it. If you are even more technical and want to be even more
efficient in implementing your personal health record you can
dictate your health information into a digital recorder,
transcribe it through the voice editor software program that
comes with the digital recorder into a word processor program
such as Microsoft Word or one that comes with the speech
recognition program, then copy and paste it into your PHR. The
latter method allows you to document information for entry into
your health record in real time, such as you come across stored
records in your home or if you dictate notes during doctor
visits.
After you have entered as much health-related information about
yourself as you have, then fully explore the personal health
record program you have, going through all the tabs and sub
tabs to see if there is any other information you can retrieve
and enter at a later date. You might need to obtain some of
this information from your health care provider(s), but since
it is not yet commonplace for patients to share the
responsibility of maintaining a health record it might be
necessary for you to clear the air first by explaining to your
doctor(s) the benefits of having a personal health record, so
as not to engender any fears of you being litigious. Also, do
not hesitate to make journal entries regarding symptoms or
developments that can be presented and discussed during an
impending doctor visit.
Once implemented, the maintenance and updating of your personal
health record should motivate you to be more involved in your
health care and hopefully improve your health.
Victor Battles, M.D.
September 26, 2009
For more information regarding implementing a personal health
record visit my website.
Source: http://www.proactivehealthoutlet.com
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