Keeping track of your medical history is no easy task (there’s just so much to record), which is probably why many people simply don’t bother. And most of the time that probably won’t matter, as your doctor should maintain all the key details for access whenever necessary.
If you’re changing doctors, though, or seeing a specialist, or need to monitor a particular condition, then it can be very useful to maintain records of your own. And the free HeyDoc! makes this much more straightforward than you might expect.
The program starts by asking you to create one or more new profiles. Add one for yourself, then others for anyone else whose history you’d like to track (your entire family, perhaps). Attach a photo to each profile, and you’re ready to begin adding details.
Explore the links in HeyDoc!’s left-hand sidebar and you’ll find plenty of forms to fill in. And the first few of these are mostly about recording simple, if important details: name, address, contact information, doctor and so on. Which seems a little basic, although even these have their uses (they provide a space to store details such as "blood group", which you might otherwise forget, for instance).
The program quickly gets more interesting, though. So a "Diet Diary" helps you to record everything you’re eating, for instance, maintaining a running calorie count. There are modules to track prescriptions you’re taking, or vitamins and supplements you might use. While the Charts section helps you to record blood pressure, sleep, weight, glucose levels, cholesterol, infant length and weight, and more, plotting the results in simple graphs to help you understand what’s going on.
There are plenty of more general options, too. So if you’re suffering from some condition which hasn’t yet been properly diagnosed -- you’re having intense headaches, say -- the HeyDoc! section allows you to record details of every attack, ensuring you’ll be able to give your doctor the most accurate and reliable information.
If there’s some aspect of your health which isn’t covered, then you can always just attach other files to a HeyDoc! profile for easy access later.
And some, or all of the profile can be freely printed out whenever you like, making it simple to share these details with anyone who needs to know.
HeyDoc! does suffer from one possibly significant problem, unfortunately. A bug means that, on some systems, it displays an error message both on starting, and whenever you select a profile. This doesn’t seem to affect functionality -- the worst we saw is that you have to wait 5 seconds for the splash screen to disappear, before clicking "Do Not Send", at which point you can carry on as normal. But it is annoying (although the developer knows about it, so hopefully a fix will be coming soon).
If you can live with that, though -- or the problem doesn’t appear on your system at all (it’s not yet clear who is affected) -- HeyDoc! should prove to be an excellent way to manage and track your entire family’s medical history. And it could be particularly useful if you’re trying to manage some chronic condition, or better understand an issue which has yet to be properly diagnosed.