Your sister is visiting your husband while you are away. Your sister knows where the tea lives and which chair your husband prefers. When your sister needs the main doctor's number, however, the search begins with your husband's phone, a kitchen drawer, and a folder of old appointment papers.
A completed information sheet gives your sister a place to start. A current contact, an update date, and a clear location for the supporting record make the information easier to use during an unfamiliar visit.
Emergency Information Sheet combines a page for quick reference with supporting pages for medicines, clinicians, everyday routines, contacts, and household arrangements. Preparing the packet includes deciding who should be able to find it.
Complete the front page together
The front page asks for your husband's name, address, preferred language, main health conditions, allergies, contacts, and main doctor. It also provides space for relevant medicines or devices and the location of certain medical papers.
Work through those fields with your husband. Record information from the current records he uses. When a detail needs checking, write down the question and contact the relevant office rather than filling the space from memory.
The sheet includes a date for completion. Enter that date when the page is ready, then update it when the information changes. A relative opening the folder should be able to see when the front page was last checked.
Give the supporting pages a home
The packet's instructions put the front page by the phone or on the refrigerator and the remaining pages in a nearby folder. Choose the arrangement with your husband, taking account of who visits and what information visitors can see.
The supporting pages have distinct jobs. What Is Normal for Me records everyday communication, movement, hearing or vision aids, sleep, and what helps your husband stay calm. The medicine pages provide spaces for names, strengths, schedules, purposes, and prescribers. Other pages record clinicians, home care contacts, suppliers, and family contacts.
Write your husband's name on every page. If a page becomes separated from the folder, the name identifies whose information it contains. Follow the packet's instruction to date a page when you change it.
Check the medicine record
Use the medicine pages to record the current information your husband and his clinicians rely on. The packet includes separate places for scheduled medicines, other medicines, and medicines stopped.
Its instructions also call for a current pharmacy printout and suggest having a pharmacist or nurse check the record against the bottles. Bring questions about differences to that professional. Ask which information needs updating, then record the confirmed change and its date.
Keep the newest printout in the folder. Tell your sister where to find it so she can bring the information to an appointment or pass a question to the appropriate clinician.
Include the household arrangements
The Family and the Home page asks about relatives to call, who has a key, pets, equipment, and anyone at home who depends on your husband for care. Those details help a visiting relative understand what may need attention if plans change.
The packet directs readers to keep alarm codes, lockbox codes, passwords, and account numbers off its pages. It provides a place to name someone to ask about access. Use that contact field and agree privately on how an appropriate helper obtains the information.
Before finishing, ask your sister to find the folder and identify the latest update date. Have your sister locate the main doctor's number and the contact who can answer a question about entering the home. Move the folder if the trial reveals an awkward hiding place, then tell your husband and your sister exactly where the current packet belongs.
Related book
Emergency Information Sheet is available free, with its front page and supporting records ready to print.