The health log: developing a health monitoring tool for people with learning disabilities within a community support agency

✍ Scribed by Lisa Curtice; Linda Long

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 65 KB
• Volume: 30
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1354-4187
• DOI: 10.1046/j.1468-3156.2002.00098.x

✦ Synopsis

Summary

The health log developed by Sense Scotland is a confidential hand‐held record of personal health information. It aims to assist the individual with complex communication difficulties to achieve improvements in health and well‐being. A secondary aim is to provide good information for healthcare professionals. The present paper describes the development of the log as part of a process to identify and respond to health needs as an integral part of person‐centred planning within a community support agency. Changes to the log, training, and plans for sharing and disseminating information about health management have been developed in response to feedback from staff. There is a need to increase awareness of the shared responsibility to promote good health throughout the networks of support providers in the community, to develop health monitoring systems to share information between health and social care providers, and to exchange good practice.