You hold the key to the true picture of your health..... by creating a Personal Health Record for you and your family....

Keeping a total personal health record will give you and your healthcare provider the most complete picture of your current and past health allowing them to provide you and your family the most effective, personalized and safest treatment possible.

You hold the pieces to your family’s true picture of health. If you are looking for the tool to start protecting the ones that you love, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll help you get started.

Step 1 – Know Your Options When Choosing a Tool

There are a variety of tools to help you create your PHR.  Many are free and some require a fee.  When choosing which tool will work best for you, some items to consider are:

1. Ease-of-use – choose a program that is straightforward and allows simple updating.
2. Accessibility – choose a web-based program that can be accessed from any computer connected to the Internet and ideally, that you can authorize others (e.g. specialists) to access as needed.
3. Security – select a tool that requires proper user authentication (i.e. secure ID and password) to access your records.
4. Content – choose a program that will allow you to enter all of your vital health information.

Before you get started picking out a tool, check with your Healthcare Provider, your Insurer or Employer, as many of these groups provide PHRs free of charge. And often, they enter the information in for your through their system, which will save you a lot of time and effort!

There are a variety of PHRs out there and we want to help you figure out what works for you. We have set a short quiz that will help you see what PHR works for you. Visit our 5 question quiz!

Step 2 – Obtaining your information

If your healthcare provider, insurer or employer do not provide you a PHR, it’s easy to get started. Your healthcare professional’s office can provide you with a copy of your medical records, and sometimes in an electronic format. More often than not, your healthcare professional’s office staff will ask you to complete an “authorization for the release of information” form. This will give the office the right to make copies of the information for you. This can sometimes take up to 30 days, but all that time is worth it!

Step 3 – Entering in your information

Entering your information into PHR can be done in a variety of ways depending on what type of PHR you choose to have. Enter the records you obtain from your healthcare professional for previous treatments and make it a habit to obtain you and your families’ medical records when they change (i.e. annual physical, hospital stays, etc.)

Step 4 – Share the information with the ones you love and trust

It’s important to make sure the ones you love know where to locate your PHR information. Ensure that they know how to locate the information at all times.