5 Essential Health Records To Track
6 min read
by the Healthdex team
Health records are important documents that keep track of your health and medical history. It is wise to track important health records in case of emergencies like surgeries and when you are travelling abroad. Some of the important health records that you should keep track are vaccination records, prescriptions, consultations, laboratory tests, and surgeries/procedures.
1. Vaccinations
Vaccinations are substances that are taken to fight against diseases or viruses that may otherwise cause epidemics or pandemics. These vaccines help build your immunity against a pathogen by reducing the chances of you getting infected. They allow you to protect yourself and those around you. If you have a higher immunity towards the pathogen, it is less likely for you to pass it on to others. In addition, these vaccines are a child or baby’s protection against infectious diseases, since they are prone to infection. By tracking your vaccination records, you are able to take note of the vaccines you have already taken and have not taken yet. You can also keep track of other vaccinations that require booster shots in order to be more effective as time goes by.
2. Prescriptions
Prescriptions are strong medications taken by patients who are ill or have health problems. Since they are strong medications, they have to be taken in moderation as prescribed or advised by the doctor. Taking large doses of these medications are very harmful and may worsen your condition more. At times, patients tend to forget taking their prescribed medications, which will lead to them to not be able to optimize the medication accordingly. Since it is very possible and normal for you to either underdose and overdose due to forgetfulness, it is important to track when you drank your prescribed medications.
3. Consultations
It is important to visit your doctor regularly to make sure you are healthy and that there are no complications. Regular consultations with the doctor would also be beneficial in identifying health complications early on. This would help lessen the progression of the illness or disease, while making it easier or better to treat. Tracking your consultations with the doctor will help monitor your health and possible symptoms of an illness or disease in order to treat it right away. It will also help you review any instructions or notes the doctor has for your current condition.
4. Laboratory Tests
Lab tests are taken to check and monitor your physical health. These are performed to measure whether or not your results are in the average or normal results for a healthy person. Usually, you send these lab results to doctors so they can give you a deeper insight and information about your health. It is important to track these lab tests to increase the accuracy of the doctor’s diagnosis. There could have been something in your previous lab test that is a symptom for an illness or disease.
5. Surgery/Procedures
Surgeries have various purposes, may it be removing something that is causing complications, repairing organs or tissues, etc. Surgeries have risks, so it is best to prepare before the surgery and to recover properly so as to not cause more problems that will need further surgeries. It is important to track your surgeries in order to make sure that you are recovering properly. It is also so that you know when you are able to do certain activities that are not advisable while recovering from the surgery. Additionally, it may help with future diagnosis. There may be some problems that arise on where you previously had surgery on. This will help the doctor identify what the problem is and how to treat it.
How to store these health records
There are many different ways to store health records, but there are some things that you should consider when storing these health records like location, organization, and backups. In terms of location, if you are using health records, you can store them in a secure cloud like Healthdex. If you are using physical health records, you can store them in locked filing cabinets. For organization, it is best to categorize these health records according to type and date. It is also important to separate records for each family member. As for backups, it is advisable to have copies of your health record: one electronic and the other physical. If you are prone to misplacing these types of documents, it may be best if you consider a backup physical copy.
These are only some of the essential health records you should keep track of. It is important to consider the impact health records have in your life. Keeping track of them would make monitoring your health easier and take necessary actions if you observe an irregularity with your health records.