When people try to think of ways to improve their health, they may become discouraged or afraid as their initial thoughts drift to major life changes, such as eating a healthier diet, exercising regularly, and giving up habits like smoking and excessive drinking. Although these strategies are important to implement to improve one’s health, not all tactics for achieving better health involve making major life changes. Creating a health journal is one relatively easy strategy that can improve someone’s health. By maintaining a health journal with his or her medical information, a person can take more control over his or her health, which will ultimately lead to better care.

The Health Journal

A health journal is a complete record of a person’s health and medical information, which can be kept electronically using a computer or on paper. A person is responsible for compiling and updating the information in his or her own health journal. The information in a health journal can include a person’s:

• Basic information (ex. name, birth date, blood type, and insurance information)

• Allergies

• Immunizations

• Major illnesses, injuries, and surgeries (along with dates when they occurred)

• Symptoms during times of illness, injury, or hospitalization

• Hospitalizations (along with dates when they occurred and any illnesses or injuries that prompted them)

• Medications, vitamins, and supplements (including dates of when a person began taking them, how often a person takes them, and what dosages the person takes)

• Physical exam dates

• Test and screening dates and results

• Family medical history (including any diseases or illnesses that run in his or her family)

People may wonder why they need to keep health journals. Considering the technological advances that have occurred in medicine (ex. surgeons’ abilities to perform procedures using robotics), people may believe that there is a system in place for doctors to be able to access any patient’s medical records electronically.

Although someday there may be a universal, electronic medical records system in the United States, that system does not yet exist as there are issues related to the cost of such a system and what such a system would mean for patients’ privacy rights. It is still sometimes difficult for doctors to gain access to their patients’ complete medical records.

A patient can help doctors understand his or her medical history by showing them a health journal. When doctors know more about a patient’s medical history, they can better treat that patient, monitor his or her health, and coordinate the care he or she receives with other types of care the patient is receiving simultaneously. Additionally, by showing doctors the information in his or her health journal, a patient can save money and time by decreasing the number of repeat, routine medical tests that he or she is given.

Also, keeping health journals will help patients be informed and knowledgeable about their own well-being, which will allow them to play more active roles in their health care. Participating more in their own health is important for patients because research has shown that patients who take more active roles have better outcomes.

Ultimately, patients are responsible for making decisions about their own health, and the information that they keep in their health journals can assist them in making these decisions. For example, the information in a health journal can help a patient identify any patterns that exist when he or she gets sick (ex. always getting sick after eating a certain food could suggest an allergy to that food). Additionally, the information in a patient’s health journal may help him or her to identify how well medications, vitamins, and supplements are working to improve his or her symptoms. This information can help a patient and doctor work together to improve the patient’s care in the future.

It is important to include as much accurate information as possible in a health journal, so to start, a person should contact his or her doctors’ offices to request his or her medical records. Using the medical records, a person can fill in the health journal with dates and details regarding past health issues, hospitalizations, medications, surgeries, allergies, etc. If a person cannot gain access to some of his or her previous medical records, he or she can still record general information that he or she remembers regarding the same types of health-related information (ex. illness, hospitalizations, medications, allergies, etc).

After adding personal health history in the health journal, it is time to collect information about the family’s medical history. To compile this information, a person can ask his or her older relatives (ex. grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, etc) about their health histories to identify diseases, such as heart disease and cancer, that run in the family.

Once a person has recorded all of the background information and prior health-related events that he or she can think of or find, he or she can begin logging current heath events and information in more detail (ex. making sure to include exact dates, medication dosages, etc).

A person should bring his or her health journal along on all doctors’ visits so that doctors are aware of his or her medical history. Also, the doctors can help keep the journal up to date with information that they know (ex. exact diagnoses of medication, etc).

Additionally, a person can show his or her health journal to other family members (ex. siblings, children, etc). This can help these family members fill in information in their health journals and become informed, active participants in their own healthcare.

Summary

Health journals are records that people can use to keep track of their medical histories and other health information. People may consider logging information about their illnesses, allergies, injuries, surgeries, medications, hospitalizations, and family histories of disease in their health journals, for example. When keeping health journals, people should try to be as accurate and as detailed as possible. For instance, they should try to include exact dates of hospitalizations and surgeries and exact dosages of medications.

To start a health journal, a person should try to obtain his or her medical records from doctors’ offices and hospitals that he or she has been to. A person should also contact his or her family members to compile information about diseases that run in the family.

Patients should bring their health journals along with them on doctors’ appointments to help them better inform their doctors about past health-related events and information that can be relevant for future care. Maintaining a health journal is also a relatively easy strategy that can allow people to become more active participants in their own healthcare, which can lead to better results.