Paper Personal Health Records By. Rebecca Damberg

What is a Personal Health Record?

A personal health record is a tool that you can use to collect, track, and share past or current information about your health.

Why have a Personal Health Record?

You are ultimately responsible for making decisions about your health. Take an active role in monitoring your health.

What are the benefits of Personal Health Records?

1) It is a life saver, in an emergency you can give vital information.2) You can record and track your health.3) You are prepared at your doctors visits, you can prepare questions you want to ask.4) You can track appointments, vaccinations, and preventive services, such as mammograms.5) You take a more active role in your own health.6) If disaster strikes, and all the records get destroyed, you have your own copy.

What information should be in a Personal Health Record?

1) Anything that helps you manage your health.2) Doctors names and phone numbers.3) Allergies 4) Medications and dosages.5) Insurance and providers.6) Immunization history.7) Chronic health problems.8) Surgeries and dates of procedures.9) Results of all tests.10) A living will or advanced directives.

How to request a copy of your health record:

1) Ask your general practitioner, eye doctor, dentist, or any other specialist for a copy of your records.

How to request a copy of your health record:

2) You do not need to request it all at once, ask each time you visit your doctors.

3) Ask for “authorization for the release of information”.

4) After you gather your health record place it in a three ring binder.

5) Bring a folder every time you visit your doctor so you can update as you go.

6) It is private information, but let family members know you are compiling it, and keep it safe and protected.

The Pros and Cons of Paper Personal Health Records

The Pros of Paper Personal Health Records:

1) Not everyone is computer savvy.

2) Senior doctors and nurses are not trained to used computers, so they still use paper records.

3) Certain people “Patients” like the simplicity of paper records.

The Pros of Paper Personal Health Records:

4) Accessibility, you do not have to access a computer terminal to access your history, the information is right in front of you.

5) When time is of the essence, paper personal records can make a difference.

6) Paper personal records are easy to collect and lock away, electronic systems are vulnerable to hackers.

The Pros of Paper Personal Health Records:

7) If you are older most of your records are on paper, so you do not need to convert you can store them in original format.

8) Paper Personal Health Records are cheap to access and store.

9) Paper Personal Health Records are easy to read, you do not need to be trained in order to understand them, or access them.

The Cons of Paper Personal Health Records

The Cons of Paper Personal Health Records:

1) Paper Personal Health Records can be destroyed.

2) Often difficult to read or even illegible.

3) Paper Records may be incomplete, and you may not know it.

The Cons of Paper Personal Health Records:

4) Electronic personal records can track actions of each user, making the records more reliable. 5) Paper records take up storage room.

6) Electronic records are eco-friendly.

Costs to develop and maintain paper personal health records:

1) Low start up costs.

2) You need to pay for copies from the doctor office, but considerably cheaper than the price of a computer.

3) You do not need expensive equipment to get your personal health record started.

4) You do not need to pay to learn how to operate a computer system.

Who would use Paper Personal Health Records?

1) Older patients.

2) People that do not have a computer.

3) People that do not like computers.

4) People that do not know how to use a computer.

5) Better for people that prefer hands on access to their records.

Works Cited

- myPHR. Web. 21 Nov. 2012. http://myphr.com

- iHealthRecord. Web. 21 Nov. 2012 http://ihealthrecord.org

- HHS.gov. Web. 21 Nov. 2012 http://hhs.gov/familyhistory

- Pamf.org. Web. 22 Nov. 2012 www.famf.org/healtheduation

- UniversalMedicationData. Web. 22 Nov. 2012 www.universalmedicationdata.com