Keeping Track of Everything
I need to find an effective way to keep track of my wife’s medical history. I’m not just talking about insurance papers or prescription records. I have all of that stuff covered. I need a way to keep track of medicine, symptoms, doctor visits, sleep patterns, and more. I also want to be able to look at this information and quickly identify trends and possible correlations between events, symptoms, and medications. Ideally, I would be able to do all of this from my phone.
Well, if such a application exists, I have yet to find it. I’m afraid that I may just have to create one.
Any system for charting or logging health information should have some portability and while I would love to be able to use my phone for this, I don’t think I want to have to transfer information from my phone into a spreadsheet, which is where I think the data will eventually reside. I’m going to start with a small notebook, like a Moleskine Ruled Notebook
Since there’s so much information regarding medicine that taken daily, I figure what I will do is only record changes in medicine. For example, if a new medication is added, I will make a note of it, or if Jenny forgets to take something on a particular day.
I can track particular symptoms, like fever or nausea, by just making a note of it on that day. The trick is going to be how to do that without having to keep too much detail.
I am also going to try and record things numerically using a scaled score. This is all pretty subjective, but maybe it will be helpful the next time something happens and we are wondering why.
All of this data will have to go into a spreadsheet. If I create one using Google Apps, then I will share the template with anyone who is interested.
My husband made a excel spreadsheet, with formulas added in, so at the end of each month we can print it out and take highlighter markers & look for patterns. Let me know if you are interested.
Nicole Scholz
Nicole.Scholz@gmail.com
@Nicole: Thanks! I hope that it will help me make sense of things.
Hey Jeff,
Great posts btw and absolutely no lameness, even though you thought so on a couple of them, lol.
Keeping you guys in my thoughts and prayers
It’s been a while. It’s insomnia night for me and I’m catching up on your blog
I was wondering if you’ve checked out Revolution Health? They have a ‘toolkit’ for tracking different things. There is one for mood. I used it for tracking my symptoms. Here’s a link if you’d like to check it out https://www.revolutionhealth.com/trackers/mood/chart
They used to have a system where you could upload all of your medical records and such, but I forgot my password and upon trying to retrieve it, I get a system problem sign and a try back later so either it’s just a glitch, or the site sucks now, lol. For what it’s worth, I really liked that site and you know, I don’t know why I haven’t used it in a while….
All my love to Jenny
Michelle
Me again, lol. You got me really thinking about tracking, which I do very poorly but it would help so much at doc visits. I found another tracking system at another site, Med Help. They actually have one specifically for autoimmune disease which really surprised me. Another link comin your way than I’m gonna stop buggin ya.
hugs
Michelle
http://www.medhelp.org/user_trackers/gallery/autoimmune