My Health Counts!

Welcome! If you care about your health, you are in the right place! Thank you for taking the first step. Here, you will find personal stories, tools, and resources to help you.

Find information about all 3 shows:
Partnering with Your Doctor	Self-Management	Quest for Quality

From Partnering With Your Doctor: Partnering with Your Doctor Create Your Personal Health Record Finding Dr. Right How to Get Copies of Your Tests & Records More Questions to Ask the Doctor

From Self-Management: Wellness & Self-Management Goals & Action Planning Learn Problem Solving Steps Finding Resources & Support Finding Credible Information

From Quest for Quality: Your Role in Getting Quality Care More About Quality Health Care More About Partnering with Your Doctor Where to Find Information on Quality

Helen's Story

"The Patient Empowerment Program was brought to Jordan Grove Baptist Church to help us better help ourselves when we go to the doctor. After Lois became our parish nurse, she set up these sessions to try to empower us to know what we are supposed to do about our health. She stressed the importance of paying attention and being alert. If I feel like I'm not being heard it's my responsibility to bring it to the doctor's attention."

 

"The session was very informative. We talked about possible questions to ask the doctor and some of the possible answers. Sometimes the doctor will run things by so quickly, because they have to keep a schedule. We must take charge of our own health. Lois says, prepare yourself, get your questions down, know where your aches and your pains are, and when you get to the doctor, if you think that you are going to forget it, put it on a piece of paper and then you can just put it in front of the doctor and say these are my concerns. Preparation in anything will guarantee you to a certain degree a better chance of coming out understanding and knowing more than you did when you went in."

 

"At one time, I would just go to the physician and I would just take what he or she said and I never really gave it too much thought because we always said the doctor knows what he or she is talking about. Now I know my role as a patient in that partnership is to be able to connect with my physician. If my physician comes up with a big medical term and I don't understand it, I will immediately say, 'Can you break it down in lay term?' I don't care how large a word is or medical term, there's always a smaller word for it."

 

Learn more about quality health care, click here.

 

For more of Helen's Story and to read about others, click here.