health histories

[Ben Thair RN]

I work in a multi-physician, multi-site community health center. We provide medical, dental and WIC services to low income and migrant agricultural persons. Many of our patients are poorly educated and speak english as a second language (if at all).

Currently, our screeners obtain all medical history. I am interested in the concept of empowering our clients to become more aware of and responsible for this information. I would like to consider a trial of self-completed Pt. history forms in one of our health centers.

Does anyone work in a similar environment and use a form that I might look at?

Do you have any horror or success stories that you would like to share with me?

Thanks for your help!

[Tookie]

wow what a concept - empowerment

I have nothing really to contribute except admiration - good luck

Keep up the good work hope you can gain someone who is on this field to help

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

Hard for them to fill out a form if they can't speak English well, let alone read.

You'd have to use a fairly free form, no fill in the blamks unless you would like to eliminate unique cultural customs, or personal anecdotes, or maybe miss some pre-existing conditions because they don't recognize the medical term.

In my opinion using a form that categorizes people before you even meet them by their medical history is less empowering than a personal interview. Although you would certainly save time and miney by just having them fill out the form.

[Ben Thair RN]

We would certainly provide the form in both english and spanish. I am interested in basic patient demographics...are you married, do you smoke, drink, take drugs, etc. History of previous hospitalizations or surgeries. any health maintenance information that the patient might know could shorten the screening interview and at the same time make it more valuable by acquiring specific information about identified areas of concern.

We definitely do not want to categorize our patients...even after we meet them!