A systematic approach is essential if you are going to keep track of your family's health records.
You can't be effective without one.
Record keeping software provides an organizing structure for you to enter and maintain details of your family's health care.
Many families have more than one doctor.
The children may have a pediatrician and the mother, a gynecologist.
Fathers may have a different doctor.
With all that complexity the only way to have a single health record for the entire family is to create it with the help of record keeping software.
Families without their own health records can face a host of problems.
If they move,for example, they may have no health records to show a new doctor or to show a school when they try to enroll their children.
Print outs from record keeping software help a new doctor provide more efficient and appropriate care.
Family medical records may even minimize unnecessary and costly tests.
Unfortunately, there's more to managing health care than visiting doctors.
Like it or not, you have to fill out forms for everything.
You can search through that same stack of unorganized records every time or you can search through your record keeping software where everything is all in one place.
That has to save you a lot of time and frustration.
Print in-depth medical reports when someone in your family has to fill out medical forms, visit a new doctor or specialist, go to the emergency room or urgent care facility, have lab work or tests or prepare for surgery.
Medical records, by their nature, are private information.
Record keeping software is password protected.
You are the only one who can access it.
However, imagine that you are struck by a medical emergency.
Can a family member access the records if you can't? The answer is yes.
You can authorize loved ones, family members, even a POA to access your records with their own password, which you control.
If you are concerned about security, record keeping software runs on your own computer at home and does not require a connection to the internet.
Multiple layers of encryption provide a high level of protection against intrusion.
In some cases, record keeping software automatically generates a wallet-sized emergency alert card by combining information from its personal profile, medical records and emergency contacts categories.
You can carry it in your purse or wallet.
You may be able to print emergency alert cards for family members, which they can keep with them at all times.
At home, you can print a medical alert summary and display it in a high visibility location, like your refrigerator, where home caregivers and emergency responders can see it.
This is the kind of information that, if accessible, can help medical technicians.
To sum up, it's the age of proactive health care.
Information is the key to getting the level of service and care you pay for.
But, there is so much information to manage you can hardly do it alone.
Paper files and notebooks are just too bulky and too easily lost or destroyed.
Maybe it's time to move it all to your computer and store it in personal record keeping software, where you can find it when you need it.