Life can be crazy busy when you’re a mom juggling work, school, kid activities, and managing everything at home. Add a health problem to the mix and suddenly all of those balls you were keeping in the air have just caught fire. We're at a new stage in time management with more and more families ditching the cute “mom calendar” in favour of digital technology that keeps everyone on track. Even our health care system is starting to shift that way too (thankfully!) My daughter and I still have paper records but my husband recently experienced how amazing Electronic Medical Records (EMR) can be and the two systems are like night and day.
When my daughter was only 17 days old, she required open heart surgery. Thankfully, her surgery was successful and she is a robust and cheery seven year old girl today. Though she is healthy, she still has to attend regular doctor’s appointments for monitoring and every test result gets sent to her pediatrician, cardiologist, family doctor, neurologist, and many other medical professionals. To say her medical file is enormous is putting it mildly.
I also have a rather cumbersome health history, involving a lot of co-ordination physiotherapists, occupational therapists, doctors, and more. Each test and appointment was documented with results and prescriptions FAXED amongst everyone. When was the last time you had a fax machine at home? Keeping track of the ever growing stack of paper was stressful and very time consuming. Losing one fax could mean waiting to reschedule an appointment for a test I’d already had, or not being reimbursed for the ever growing cost. Managing our health can quickly become a full time job.
In stark contrast, my husband recently had minor day surgery, and the difference between his experience and ours was amazing. No booking extra appointments and waiting weeks to get test results - they were made available online within 48 hours! No missing fax sheets and no huge pile of papers to lug around. Amazing.
I’m a bit of a tech geek so I am really excited and relieved about this shift in digital health. I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that in some health clinics across the country, Fitbit information feeds right into a digital medical chart so a doctor can get a full view into your lifestyle and make better recommendations. This also means that they can take a more proactive approach to health so we don't even get sick in the first place! Canadians who have take advantage of digital health can book appointments online and their doctors can check insurance coverage before they prescribe anything. Awesome, right?
Is your family doctor as tech savvy as my husband's? If he or she isn't, tell them about TELUS Health (I've been telling mine all about it!) TELUS Health is creating cool medical tech for all of us to take advantage of. There are over fourteen thousand family doctors in Canada already using their systems! Not only will it make their job easier, it will make things simpler for you too. Managing your family's medical needs will be as easy as posting on Facebook, plus, just think of all the trees we could save!
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