Expert Opinion
A new, Plain-English way to help everyone to become more knowledgeable and active about their own and their families health and care
I welcome the addition of BodyTab to the supportive and effective tools available to patients, doctors and health care professionals.
A recent British Medical Journal editorial emphasised that the key to successful clinician-patient partnerships is to recognise that, in matters of their own illness, patients are also experts. Only the patient has first hand experience of the effects of their illness, their family medical history, their real social circumstances, habits and behaviour, attitudes to risk, values and preferences.
This type of knowledge, shared with their doctors, is needed to maintain health and manage illness successfully. Managing illness without an effective sharing of information often leads to poor outcomes. Maintaining health and preventing disease is almost impossible.
BodyTab is a new Family Health Resource kit, written in Plain-English and designed to allow people to become more knowledgeable and involved in their healthcare. It is made up of:
- A comprehensive Personal Health Record (paper , personal computer and internet options) for storing the health history and medical information for every member of the family to use in many situations where immediate access to such knowledge is essential or helpful e.g. in an emergency, when attending their Doctor or Consultant, care of elderly parents or traveling abroad.
- And an integrated information tool to learn about, test and monitor family members, in the privacy of the home, for increasingly common medical conditions - asthma, abnormal cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. When it is realised that
- ".about half of Irish Adults over age 50 have high blood pressure .a very important determinant of all types of stroke."
and ... - ".undiagnosed Type 2 diabetes is a major primary cause of heart disease, kidney disease, lower limb amputations and blindness in under 65's."
- ".about half of Irish Adults over age 50 have high blood pressure .a very important determinant of all types of stroke."
The importance of prevention in the vulnerable high risk individual is evident.
BodyTab empowers you and your family to become actively involved in your own health management. Because it reduces the risk of error due to mis-information and poor communication, and because it empowers patients and their families to participate actively in their care it should become an integral part of overall Health Care Provision in Ireland.
With BodyTab, it is easy for everyone to have an accurate up to date record and to add (new) health information including important details - like over-the-counter therapies, medications, regular blood pressure readings or a new illness in the family - to their health records so that they can then conveniently share this when needed with their healthcare team.
Having a comprehensive health history and contemporary up to-date record to hand, in one file enables your healthcare team to give the patient the best advice and treatment.
This is an innovative and extremely useful tool which has the potential to become an essential health resource from which every family could benefit.
Dr Brian Maurer
Medical Director, Irish Heart Foundation
... excellent as a way to pass on information on family health history. This is a huge problem as people don't know illnesses of their parents ...
... In the event of an accident or sudden illness - could you remember every doctor you've ever seen, every treatment you've ever undergone, and every medication you've ever taken ... You can of your medical history is all together, updated and in one place.
- Doctors, Reserch at the Irish College of General Practitioners Annual Conference, Galway.
