Especially once you have several children, and especially if you’ve moved at all, it can get tricky remembering all the health details you want to keep up with.  Who was the orthodontist again?  That time you needed to see the orthopedic specialist, who did you see?  What’s the number for the optometrist’s office?

Have all of the kids had chicken pox, or did everyone else get them before the youngest was born?  Who’s had which shots?  How many times has Johnny had x-rays?  When did you give the last dose of antibiotics?

Your head is spinning, right?  And this is just the tip of the iceberg!  One effective solution is to keep a binder (or binders) full of health records.  The Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle this year included a few printable products that are super-helpful for this.  In particular, The Wellness Notebook, which I’m going to focus on here, but there are a couple others that make good adjuncts for health planning.

The Wellness Notebook

The Wellness Notebook is for keeping track of all of your children’s and your basic health data (birth details, vaccination records, surgical history, etc.), your family health history, care provider names and phone numbers, etc., as well as recording the details of current acute illnesses that all blur together after a little while, and creating a knowledge base of information about illnesses and remedies.

There are a few different ways you can do this.  For instance, you could use file folders and two-prong fasteners.  I personally prefer binders because I find them easy to work with, but that still leaves a few different options for how to organize the information.

The first big question is whether you want to keep the whole family’s records together in one book, or have a separate one for each person.  There are pros and cons to both.  Overall storage size is typically smaller with a single binder, but the individual ones are more portable if you’re carrying them with you to doctors’ visits.  One big one may also be harder to lose.

I considered getting these in the colors I’ve color-coded my children with, but they don’t offer a choice of colors.  So I decided to use a single binder, with tabs I colored to “go with” each child’s other color-coded items, and see about maybe getting a single 1/2″ binder or a folder with prongs to temporarily put a section of the notebook in if I need to carry it with me.  If we visited the doctor a lot, I might have chosen differently.

The other big question is personal data vs. general data.  That is, records specifically to your family or family members, as opposed to general information about illnesses, remedies, etc. (something that could, theoretically, be handed off to someone outside the family and not be irrelevant).  Some people may choose to keep these all together in one place.  I prefer to keep them separate.  I printed out a master copy of the herb profile and popped it into the wildcrafting notebook I started last year.  If I use the illness profiles (I may not), I’ll probably give them their own small notebook.

Setting it Up

If you’re going to set up your notebook like I did mine, you’ll need a binder, tabbed dividers (one tab per family member, plus a couple of extras), a folder designed to go in a binder, and of course The Wellness Notebook and a working printer with plenty of paper.  (By the way, I don’t recommended polypropylene folders for this because, in my experience, they’re too slippery and stuff falls out.)

Wilson Jones Ultra Duty D-Ring Binder with Extra Durable Hinge, 1.5-Inch, Army Green (W876-34-384)Get ItWilson Jones Insertable Tab Dividers- Gold Line, 8-Tab Set, Clear Tabs on Buff Paper (W54131A)Get ItFive Star Binder Pocket Folder, Stay-Put 2-Pocket Folder, 9-1/2Get It

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Now, go through The Wellness Notebook and print copies.  One or two copies of the doctor information page is probably fine for the whole family unless at least one of you uses a lot of specialists, in which case you’ll probably want a separate copy for each person that’s true of.  Print copies of the various “histories” pages for everyone as appropriate.  (I did not, for instance, print a surgery record for anyone who hasn’t had surgery.  I thought was a waste of paper, since I can print one later if I need it.)  Print ten or so copies of the doctor visit form if you’re using it.  (I don’t; I just have them print off the records they already use at the office.)  Print ten or so copies of the illness record.  And then make an extra copy of anything you think you’re likely to use semi-regularly.

Those extra copies you just made — set those aside from everything else.  Those are your “masters” so you have something readily at hand to copy when you need more, and don’t have to go pull the ebook back up.  Put them in the folder and put the folder at the back of the binder.  Three-hole punch everything else.

The doctor information page goes in the very front.  Then there should be tabs for each family member.  Behind each tab should be a series of history pages (and a doctor information page if necessary).  Put all the blank doctor visit/illness record sheets behind a tab after all the family members, and everything is in place.

Filling it out could take a while if you’re catching up, so you might want to schedule that for another day.  Just do your best; don’t feel like every single blank has to be filled in.  I also put the person’s initials at the top of any page that doesn’t already have a place for a name on it.  They’re all in their own little sections, but if a child should drop the binder, popping it open and scattering pages…well, I’d rather not have to be figuring up dates to sort out which pages belong to whom.

Angi has plenty of information in the book about how to use the various worksheets (although most of it is pretty intuitive), so I won’t repeat it all here.

Healthy Habits

Health records are possibly the most significant bits of information we need to organize in this arena, but they aren’t necessarily all we have to keep straight.  Resources such as the Health & Wellness Printable Planner make planning for healthy habits easier.

This includes some basic “tracking” pages for your planner, like a vitamin/supplement tracker, a fitness journal, a food journal, and a healthy habits checklist.  It also includes a meal planner (weekly), and a set of worksheets for setting and breaking down health & wellness goals.

Whereas The Wellness Notebook has a stronger focus on recording what is past (and especially illness/injury), the Health & Wellness Printable Planner has a stronger focus on now & in the future (and especially proactive, preventative health).  They complement each other nicely.

The Garden

Slightly less related (and probably less relevant for some of you), but not altogether unrelated, is the (vegetable) garden.  For many of us, the family garden is integral to health, because it’s one way we make nutritious, quality food accessible for ourselves and our loved ones.  But gardens call for planning, too!

Planning & Designing the Family Food Garden is a pretty amazing resource!  It’s fairly extensive, so if you’re a beginning gardener and just plan to get your feet wet, without having a really significant garden, there are some things here you can skip over.  (Don’t let it overwhelm you!  Just skip what you don’t need.)  With that said, it’s amazing for a newbie, because it walks you through all the little details you need to consider to be successful: knowing your area, knowing what your family eats (it’s pretty silly to grow six rows of peas because they’re fairly easy, if everyone in your house hates peas!), figuring out when to plant, etc.

It may seem like overkill at a glance, but taking the time to carefully think through this entire process before you get started can actually save you time (and money, and headaches).

The printable planner is only one small piece of this resource, which is an entire ebook that explains the whole thing in greater depth.  This is such a beginner-friendly resource!  (I would also recommend having a plan ahead of time of how to preserve any excess.  I never remember to do this until I have things sitting in my kitchen waiting on me, and I have to scramble for recipes to use!)

Do you have any other favorite resources for organizing health records & plans?