I’ve been learning, primarily through EmpowHER.com, how to advocate for my health. And with eight occurrences of cancer, I know how important it is.
I am on the computer all day for work and am pretty up-to-date with technology and am finding that it can help me advocate.
Doctors offices can sometimes be slow to respond—or slower than we would like them to be. They don’t necessarily schedule much “desk” time to go over test results and get information to us.
I need to get regular blood draws because I am on coumadin and I’m low on iron. I go to Quest Labs and use their Gazelle phone app. As soon as the doctor is sent my lab results, I am notified by email and I can go to the app and see my full results. One time I looked at it before my doctor made it to his desk, and because the dosage of the coumadin would need to be changed, I was able to call him before I had the prescription refilled at the old dosage.
Stanford Medical Center has also started a site called MyHealth where I can send secure messages to my clinic, view some of my test results, past and upcoming appointments and more.
This type of technology will help solve my need to get test results immediately, be able to compare one test to another and – advocate for what I need!