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Just Bee

Intentional living, motherhood, + home

How to Set Up a Family Health Journal

June 24, 2016 |

Ahh, adulting. 😉 Sometimes Bjorn and I just have to pause and laugh about the things we find ourselves talking about on a daily basis. Post-college, married life is full of “adulting” tasks! Discussing our investments is common. Or talking about laundry, or taking out the trash, or mail, or car maintenance…

Handling doctor’s appointments is another aspect of adult life that isn’t particularly glamorous but sure is important! You may have seen the caption go by on my Instagram account last weekend, but a dumb allergic eye reaction (at least it wasn’t an infection) left me with a doctor’s visit, wearing glasses for days (ick), and fresh motivation to intentionally keep track of our family health records!

Bjorn and I are generally really healthy people, so we don’t get to the doctor much at all – something we’re grateful for! However, as we’ve established ourselves as a married couple, and as I look ahead at times when there’ll be little ones running around…tracking our health records starts to look even more important!

How to Create A Family Health Journal - Just Bee

Here’s how I set up our family health journal:

First, I bought a binder and binder tabs. I also gathered looseleaf paper (pre-punched).

I created a little coversheet for the binder, for fun but also for labeling purposes. 🙂

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I labeled the tabs “GP Visits” (General Practitioner), “Eye Health,” “Dentist/Teeth,” and “Specialists.” There’s an extra tab, though, so I can use that label if I think of another category we need.

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I then filled each section of the binder with some sheets of the looseleaf paper.

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Maintaining and updating the family health journal:

To actually keep and maintain this health journal, I know I’ll need subsections within each category for both Bjorn and myself. (I like the binder/looseleaf paper idea because it allows this health journal to be expandable and accommodate more family members in the future.)

Since I wanted to start this health journal with an entry for myself (the recent eye issue), I labeled the top of the paper with my name. I will label a separate sheet of paper with Bjorn’s name for his entries, so I don’t mix up our entries within each category. I continued by adding the date of my doctor’s visit and I penned a paragraph describing symptoms, what the doctor diagnosed, and what was prescribed. I also wrote how the prescription helped.

Then, I took a highlighter and highlighted just a few of the key phrases (the diagnosis and the name of the prescribed medicine). The reason for this is because I can easily scan past entries if I ever have similar symptoms in the future. That’ll help in future conversations with doctor’s about my history, or what medications worked well or didn’t work well before.

This process may seem really detailed, but it only took me a couple minutes to complete my little entry and now we’ve got a handy, easy-to-maintain system!

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Was this little tutorial helpful to you? How do you like to keep track of doctor’s visits for yourself or your family?

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Filed Under: Clean + Organize, Tips & Tricks | Tagged With: binder, doctor, family, health, home, journal, organize, simplify

Comments

  1. Ingrid says

    June 24, 2016 at 8:16 am

    This is a great idea! My mom is a nurse, and she did something similar and made a binder for each family member. I keep a space for questions for my doctor in the binder as well- that way the next time I see them, I don’t forget to ask!

    • Hannah Olson says

      July 1, 2016 at 9:19 am

      That’s so great, Ingrid!! It’s nice to hear that your mom, as a nurse, recommends doing that kind of system too! Thanks for sharing! And yes – keeping questions in the binder is a great plan!

  2. Annie says

    June 24, 2016 at 1:22 pm

    Hannah, this is SUCH a great idea! Absolutely pinning this because it is just such a wonderful way to stay organized! Definitely love posts like this!

    • Hannah Olson says

      July 1, 2016 at 9:20 am

      Thanks, Annie!! I know it’s not the most glamorous post, but it sure helps us to add it into our little household systems 🙂 I’m glad you liked it so much!

  3. Chelsea Jacobs says

    June 24, 2016 at 2:23 pm

    This is such a good idea!!

    • Hannah Olson says

      July 1, 2016 at 9:20 am

      Thank you, Chelsea!!

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Welcome to Just Bee! I’m Hannah – wife to Bjorn and mama to Sophie and Soren, soaking up our life in rural Minnesota. Just Bee is my happy place – it’s where I write about intentional living, motherhood, and creating a peaceful home. I hope you feel instantly at home here and that you’re blessed by these posts.

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