Another responsibility of the home nurse is to keep family health records. Basic health facts about individual member of the family are often needed to various purposes. For example, they are necessary to complete school records, insurance forms, and the family doctor’s medical record. Family health records should be kept in chronological order, accurately, and up to date if they are to be valuable. They differ from, but are related to the patient’s daily record. While the daily record is a detailed report of one illness, the family health records should contain summaries of all illnesses incurred.

Accurate information about all injuries and illnesses, X-rays, routine physical examination, records of immunization, blood type operations, and periods of hospitalization should be entered in the record. Because many families change doctors when they move, and there may be times when medical information is needed from a former physician, the names of attending doctors should be included in the record, Dental care and the names of the dentists should be part of the record tool

The American Medical Association has published a family health record in booklet from that many physicians provide their patients. Some insurance companies have similar booklets that may be obtained from their offices or agents. However, the importance of the family’s health record is the information it contains, and any durable notebook can be used for the record keeping.