The Savvy Patient 

Seminar offerings are in modular format to enable you to choose topics to meet your interests and needs.  All modules emphasize what people need to know to become Savvy patients and lead their healthcare teams, as well as, what they can specifically do to attain better healthcare, decrease their chance for medical errors, and help cut medical costs. 

 1.       The State of Healthcare Today and Why You Need to Learn How to Lead Your Healthcare Team.

Recaps main factors affecting healthcare today and provides attention-getting statistics that makes you reassess how you are doing things. Explains the difference between just showing up for a doctor’s appointment and what it means to be a patient who actively participates in and takes control of their own care.

 2.       You Make the Difference – An Overview of the Savvy Patient's Health Record System

Introduces the Savvy Patient Health Record System—What, why, how, and when to use it.

 3.       Finding a “Partner Doctor”

Most people are not as deliberate as they need to be when choosing their medical team. This module discusses criteria to consider and how to evaluate your team members.

 4.       Leading Your Healthcare Team

Module 1 talks about why you need to lead your healthcare team. This module discusses what you need to do and how to go about doing it.

 5.       Capturing & Using Your Medical History & Family Medical Tree

Relying on memory to recall your entire medical history every time a doctor wants you to write it down is frustrating and usually inaccurate. It took me three weeks to recall everything when I filled out my medial history forms for my Savvy Patient Health Record Notebook. More important than capturing it all is knowing why & how to use it when you are talking with a doctor.

 6.       Being Prepared – Getting the Most Out of Your Doctors’ Appointments

With short appointment times, multiple doctors on your team, and your emotions, this module discusses what you need to do to truly be prepared for and get the most out of every doctor’s appointment.

 7.       Doctor / Patent Communication—Communicating Your Story

Did you know that every time you go to the doctor you are telling him a story or part of a bigger story? How good is your story? This module helps you understand the dynamics of communicating with your doctor, how to get his attention, and how to tell a complete story.

 8.       Recognizing & Tracking New Symptoms / Managing Chronic Conditions

How often do you get to your appointment and realize you really can’t remember all the details of your health concern and you stammer and stutter as you try to think your concern through. Then, while driving home you realize you forgot to tell him one or two important things. Or, changes were made in your care for a chronic condition and you can’t quite figure out the cause of new symptoms. This module helps take the pain out of these and other dilemmas related to recognizing and communicating symptoms and disease progression.

 9.       Managing Medications & Preventing Errors

Taking medications properly and recognizing and dealing with medication interactions and side effects are more important than most people realize. Medication errors, of which there are many kinds, cause the most medical errors in outpatient care. There are many things people can do to prevent preventable errors. This module explains what and how.

 10.    Medical Advocate: The Ins & Outs of Being and Having One

• For General Health & Appointment Assistance

Discusses how critical it is to have another person involved in your healthcare besides you and your doctor on an ongoing basis. Defines the role and lays out the responsibilities.

• In the Hospital

In today’s hospital environment, every patient, but especially the seriously ill and those who have had surgery, needs someone to know everything about their health and be with them to help ask questions and insure they get the proper treatment. This module covers the what, why, and how to make it happen. 

11.    In the Hospital

• Remaining the Leader of Your Care When It’s Very Difficult to Do So

Discusses why you can’t leave it all to the doctors and nurses and turn your brain off when you are hospitalized and how stay on top of you care.

• Preventing Preventable Errors

There is so much room for error in the complexities of the hospital environment. Even though we feel at their mercy, we are not. There is much we can do to prevent preventable medical errors in that environment. 

12.    Medical Tests & Procedures: Why You Need to Know the Results and Understand Them

Doctors and patients both assume they (the patient) won’t understand what the words mean when it comes to medical tests and procedure results, so the doctor just barely explains what he needs to and the patient doesn’t ask for the details or to have a copy of the results. These actions only leave the patient at a disadvantage. Information needs to be shared, questions need to be asked. This module explains how you can become more knowledgeable and have the power  to improve your healthcare.

 

 13.    Researching Conditions, Medications & Treatment Options

Most people, especially when confronted with health decisions, have a hard time knowing where to start to gain the knowledge they need to make good decisions. Too many people leave it up to their doctors to make the decisions for them.  Here I provide a simple straightforward way to do the research and weigh the options.  No more lying in bed with scattered details swimming in your mind.

 14.    Being the Leader of Your Child’s Healthcare Team

Children are more likely to experience medical errors than adults. As parents and guardians of these treasures from God, we need to do everything we can to be sure they get the best care possible and decrease their chances for medical errors. This module is an overview of the Savvy Patient Health Record System for parents.

 15.    How Your Company Can Benefit from the Savvy Patient Health Record System

Are you interested in having your employees take more control over their health, have fewer, but more effective doctor appointments, fewer complications, and avert medical errors? You will want to learn about the Savvy Patient Health Record System. An added bonus is the system has proven to reduce costs; therefore has the potential to reduce health insurance costs if all your employees learn to use the system properly.