How do you organize your health records?

January 10, 2014 11:25 AM

How do you keep track of your health information? Having lived in a dozen different places during the past decade, I've lost track of all of the doctors and specialists I have seen. Realizing as I filled a prescription that Walgreens still remembers things about me from college that I had forgotten, I want to get organized.

Found this 2008 question on AskMe, (and, to some extent, this) and am looking for updates.

My old system was to shove everything into a folder. But I now have a folder at my parents, a scanned copy of a folder when I made a move, and a half filled folder here, and I can never seem to find anything. Digital seems to be preferable. Maybe Microsoft HealthVault, since Google Health is dead?

My goals are to:
- Keep track of vaccinations, so next time I travel I don't have to scratch my head as to when I got what vaccine, and whether I am up to date
- Keep track of what doctors I have seen and for what
- Keep track of current/past prescriptions
- Bonus: keep track of general family history (I have almost a dozen biological aunts/uncles, and many many many cousins

What are your best practices?

posted by troytroy to Health & Fitness (3 answers total)

I am as techy and digital minded as they come but I keep all of this stuff in an old fashioned binder. I keep one sheet up front with the most important information up to date (current PCP, current insurance information, allergies, current medications, vaccinations, blood type, etc) and then behind that I put chronological health records, test results, prescription labels in plastic sheet protectors, etc.

The paper approach works best, in my opinion, because you can take it with you to doctor's appointments and/or the hospital. Your family/roommate/trusted whomever should know where the binder is and be able to grab it if, god forbid, you're in a car accident or something.
posted by telegraph at 11:36 AM on January 10, 2014

As with many other things, what I do is throw it all in a spreadsheet in google docs. Unless your health records are extremely long, this shouldn't take very long at all - just take 2 minutes after each appointment to fill it in. It's dead easy to do and it's impossible to lose it. Plus you can always pull it up on a smartphone at the doctor's or wherever, or access it on any computer.

Stuff that can't be converted into text (images or whatever), I'd just scan and either upload to google docs or a folder on your computer, as you prefer.
posted by randomnity at 12:40 PM on January 10, 2014

Since this is still open:

1. Doctor appointments are in my calendar on my Mac, which syncs to my iPhone.
2. I have a simple text file that summarizes key parts of my medical history, including vaccination dates. It also notes my prescriptions (and my prescription history). This lets me fill in the questionnaires for any new doctors really easily.
3. I scan things like lab results.
4. The text file and the scans go into my Dropbox, so they are always available.

Some people would use Evernote to hold all of this, but I never got into using Evernote.

I don't keep track of family history, but my brother uses Ancestry.com.
posted by jeri at 11:57 PM on February 15, 2014