Personal Health Care Records (PHR) Products to help avoid an ambulance ride back to the hospital

Personal Health Care Records (PHR) can be a powerful tool for families who have an older member in the hospital. This is especially true at discharge.

What are PHR? Quite simply it’s just a way keeping track of information. The tracking can be as simple as a notebook or as high tech as one of the 150 PHC’s products available online like Lifeledger.

There are about 100-200 PHR on the market right now, so you have a wide range of choices. Just Google personal health care records and you will find many products, including Google’s own version.

What’s in a personal health care record maintained via computer? Most web based PHR contain data. The product information can vary but in general they include:

Identification Sheet – This may be a listing of the older family members demographic information: name, address, telephone number, insurance, and policy number.

Problem List – A list of significant illnesses and operations older family member has had.

Medication Record - A list of medicines currently prescribed to the older family member, as well as medication allergies.

History and Physical – A list of any major illnesses and surgeries the older family member has had and what the physician found when older person went to each doctor’s appointment.

Progress Notes – Notes made by the family caregiver who accompanied the older person to the medical appointment, including observations and treatment plans made by doctors, nurses, therapists, or social workers.

Consultation – An opinion about your older family member’s condition made by a physician other than older person’s primary care physician.

Physician's Orders – The older family members physician's directions to other members of the health care team regarding medications, tests, diets, and treatments.

Imaging and X-ray Reports – Findings of x-rays, mammograms, ultrasounds, and scans.

Lab Reports – Results of tests conducted on body fluids. Common examples include a throat culture, urinalysis, cholesterol level, and complete blood count (CBC).

Consent and Authorization Forms – Copies of consents for admission, treatment, surgery, and release of information.

Discharge Summary – A concise summary of a hospital stay, including the reason for admission, significant findings from tests, procedures performed, therapies provided, response to treatment, condition at discharge, and instructions for medications, activity, diet, and follow-up care.

All of these facets of the PHR are important at discharge but some are more useful.

One big help at discharge is the Progress Notes section. While the family members meet with discharge planners, physicians or training staff , like physical therapists, they can input the directions. Creating your own Cliff Notes, this allows caregivers to better recall all the critical directions being chucked at them.

The “Discharge Summary” element of PHR is a powerful tool for adult children and others .It allows you to keep a succinct summary of what you have to do as a family caregiver to safely keep the older person at home and not headed back to the ER. If you are given a discharge summary you can just scan it into the PHR .

Medication records- another great part of a PHR products The family caregiver can add all the new meds at discharge or just scan them in if the physician or discharge planner give you a hard copy. A giant portion of re-admissions come from patients and their families not taking or administering meds properly after discharge .

Make discharge safe for your older family member and not a treacherous a loop back to the hospital. Look into something as simple as a notebook and pen or as high tech as a web tool such as a PHR. Information is an electric power tool for the aging family, especially one making the dangerous transition from hospital to home .