First excerpt: Mistake-Proofing Your Medical Care and Health-at-a-Glance Form.

Second excerpt: Keeping a Record of Your Doctor's Advice and Instructions and Office Visit Form.

MISTAKE-PROOFING YOUR MEDICAL CARE

If you did nothing except fill out and use your Health-at-a-Glance and Emergency Information Card, you would have dramatically reduced the margin of error in every aspect of your health-care. Of course, each of my steps is an important part of the Health Record system and I certainly don't want you to stop after Step 1. But I do want you to marvel with me about the fact that in a matter of minutes, just by writing down information pretty much off the top of your head, you will have created two little documents capable of saving your life. In an emergency, even if you were unconscious, doctors who have never laid eyes on you before would be able to proceed without worrying about drug interactions and allergic reactions. They would have very good clues to help them make an accurate diagnosis. And they wouldn't end up giving you shots or drugs you didn't need or that could be dangerous for you.

Your Health-at-a-Glance sheet can also help your doctor help you during the course of routine medical care. He will have a complete synopsis of your health status on a single page. Reading it will remind him -- or inform him for the first time -- of crucial details that could affect your outcome. Don, a 70-ish retired businessman, is a case in point. He went to a doctor in Florida for his first visit since moving there. Don was one of the people I had enlisted to help me test my Health Record, and he brought the binder with him to the appointment. On the Health-at-a-Glance sheet, he had listed Coumadin, a prescription blood thinner he was taking for atrial fibrillation, a common heart rhythm disturbance. He had also written down two over-the-counter herbal preparations: gingko biloba, which has a reputation as a memory enhancer, and saw palmetto, which has been reported to ease symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). This condition affects some 40 percent of men over 70 and causes frequent, urgent or incomplete urination. As soon as Don's new doctor looked at the Health-at-a-Glance sheet, he spotted a couple of problems. First, gingko may inhibit clotting and shouldn't be taken with Coumadin. Second, saw palmetto can work so well to shrink the prostate -- and thus lower the results of a test for the enzyme PSA- that it may mask prostate cancer. The doctor advised Don to stop the gingko, and he asked Don to get copies of previous blood work so they could compare the results for PSA before and after Don started taking the saw palmetto. But, of course, since Don was already following my system, he had copies of his test results right there in his binder and didn't have to track them down.

The Savard Health Record has complete step-by-step instructions for filling out the Health-at-a-Glance form provided here.

View Health-at-a-glance form.
View Health-at-a-glance with sample patient information.

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Health-at-a-Glance

Health-at-a-Glance with patient information

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KEEPING A RECORD OF YOUR DOCTOR'S ADVICE AND INSTRUCTIONS

Doctors often schedule no more than 10 or 15 minutes per patient. You need to be prepared to use your time with your doctor well. Review your Personal Health Journal, then fill out one of the Office Visit forms in Section 2 of your binder. Then, when you call to make your appointment, tell the receptionist or office manager why you need to be seen, so you'll be scheduled for the right amount of time if you have special concerns. Bring your filled-out Office Visit form with you and refer to it, or hand it to your doctor. Studies have shown that when patients ask questions, doctors almost always provide answers. But if you don't ask whether it's normal to urinate three times during the night or whether you should be concerned about the dizzy spells you've been having, your doctor won't be in a position to assess your symptoms. Also, write down your doctor's advice and recommendations. Research has revealed that patients forget 30 percent of what their doctors tell them.

View Office Visit form
View Office Visit form with sample patient information.

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Office Visit

Office Visit with sample patient information

If you cannot open the forms Download Adobe's free Acrobat Reader