Your Healthcare Team: Personal Information
The importance of providing accurate information to your health care team can not be understated. This article highlights the most important aspects of keeping, sharing and collecting this vital information.
To get the most out of your medicines, there are certain things that you must do. Your health care professionals will be working with you, but you also have a responsibility for your own health.
COMMUNICATING WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER
Communication between you and your health care professional is central to good medical care. Your health care professional needs to know about you, your medical history, and your current problems. In turn, you need to understand the recommendations he or she is making and what you will need to do to follow the treatment. You will have to ask questions — and answer some too. Communication is a two-way process.
GIVING INFORMATION
Your health care professional needs to know some details about your past and present medical history. In discussing these details, you should always be completely open and honest. Your health professional's diagnosis and treatment will be based in part on the information that you provide. A complete list of the details that should be included in a full medical history is provided in the "medical history" checklist.
MEDICAL HISTORY FORMS
Many health care professionals have a standard "medical history" form they will ask you to fill out when they see you for the first time. Some may ask the questions and write down the answers for you. If you will be visiting a health care professional for the first time, prepare yourself before you go by thinking about the questions that might be asked and jotting down the answers — including dates — so that you will not forget an important detail. Once your "medical history" is in the files, subsequent visits will take less time.
You will have to supply each health care provider you see — every time you see one — with complete information about what happened since your last visit. It is important that your records are updated, so he or she can make sound recommendations for your continued treatment, or treatment of any new problems.
MEDICAL HISTORY FILE
It will simplify things if you develop a "medical history" file at home for yourself and each family member for whom you are responsible. Setting up the file will take time. However, once it is established, you need only to keep it up-to-date and remember to take it with you when you see a health care professional. This will be easier than having to repeat the information each time and running the risk of confusing or forgetting details.
It is also a good idea to carry in your wallet a card that summarizes your chronic medical conditions, the medicines you are taking, and your allergies and drug sensitivities. You should keep this card as up-to-date as possible. Many pharmacists provide these cards as a service.
GETTING INFORMATION
In order to benefit from your health care professional's advice you must understand completely everything that he or she tells you. Do not be embarrassed to ask questions, or to ask him or her to explain again any instruction or detail that you do not understand. Then it is up to you to carry out those instructions precisely. If there is a failure in any part of this system, you will pay an even higher price — physically and financially — for your health care.
Your health care professional may provide instructions to you in written form. If he or she does not, you may want to write them down or ask the health care professional to write them down for you. If you do not have time to jot down everything while you are still with your health care professional, sit down in the waiting room before you leave and write down the information while it is still fresh in your mind and you can still ask questions. If you have been given a prescription, ask for written information about the drug and how to take it. Your pharmacist can also answer questions when you have your prescription filled.
