How to Keep Track of Doctor Visits and Medications – The Easy Way!
I was fortunate to stay home with my son for the first year of his life. I was also fortunate that I did not have to deal with him getting sick basically that entire year. He has now been in daycare almost a year, and he has definitely made up for lost time. It has been one doctor visit after another—last month alone he managed to catch both croup and coxsackie. It is difficult enough to juggle working full-time with sleepless nights with a sick kid, but staying on top of all of the doctor visits and medications has been almost impossible.
In an attempt to manage these records, I am going to create an excel document to track all of this in one convenient place.
Create a List of What to Track
The first thing I like to do when putting together a spreadsheet, is to brainstorm a list of everything I might want to include. Here is the list I came up with regarding doctor visits:
• The date of the visit
• Whether is was a wellness visit or not
• If it was a wellness visit, what vaccinations were administered
• Where were the vaccinations administered (shot A in right leg, B in left leg, etc.)
• Is he sick?
• What are his symptoms?
• What was the diagnosis?
• What medications did the doctor prescribe?
• What are the instruction for the medication?
• Is a follow-up visit required?
• How long is he going to be contagious for?
• Do I need a doctor’s note to bring him back to daycare/school?
Finalize the Items to Track and Create a Spreadsheet Draft
Based on the fact that my son is only 22 months, and that his daycare doesn’t require a note to allow him back in after being sick, I am not going to add the last two points to my document right now. I can always add them in later if necessary. Instead, I am just going to add a comments column that will provide the space to mention anything else relating to this particular visit. If at some point along the road I begin to notice a trend in my comments, I will then consider adding a columns for that item.
I am likewise going to leave the vaccination site information out for now. The reason I want to keep track of this information is so that if there is a reaction, I know what shot he is reacting to and whether it is serious or not. (I had an incident with a reaction to his 18 month shots. If I remember correctly, it was his DTaP vaccination, and the fourth and fifth shots can cause a larger welt at the site than normal. Needless to say, I had to do a lot of extra searching to determine it was nothing serious. Perhaps if I had started this spreadsheet sooner, I would be able to elaborate more..). I think I would rather create a printable for this. I will come back to this point, later..
So, here is the first rough draft of my spreadsheet:
It’s not too pretty, but you have to start somewhere, right!
I typically leave a column to the left of the table empty as well as one above for modification purposes.
I hope to be able to go back at some point and fill in his entire history, but for now, I am just going to start tracking this information going forward.
Keep in mind that any spreadsheet I create is generally modified over time as I figure out what is working, and what is just tedious and irrelevant to keep entering.
Make it Look Appealing
I hate filling in a boring spreadsheet. If you want to create a habit out of filling in this information, I highly suggest taking a few minutes to make it something you don’t mind looking at. So, let’s add a pop of color and a more interesting font:
Edit the Spreadsheet for Flow and Readability
At this point, you are going to want to take a look at what you have and see if everything makes sense. Looking at the table I created, I think that it is a little misleading having the symptoms directly next to the vaccination column. To me, it looks like that column is there to indicate any symptoms that arose from the vaccinations. Because of this confusion, I am going to separate these sections.
There. I inserted thin columns to group the information into similar sections. Now, to put it to use!
Here is a Link to the Spreadsheet!
For those of you who would like to put this spreadsheet to use, here is a link:
I added extra rows to get you started. I also added an additional worksheet so you can track all your kids, pets, spouses, too. Please reach out if you have any questions on how to use the document, or go here for my How to Excel Series.
And Last but Not Least, Printables!
Here are some printables if you would rather use those to track doctor visits.
Are there any columns you would add that I left out? Or anything I put in there that you think is unnecessary? Feedback is always welcome and will help us all have the best tools to use to manage all of the doctor visits and prescriptions that come along with having young children!
So let me know what you think! And don’t forget, if you found this helpful, share it with someone so they can use it, too!
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