Seth Godin, copyrighted image from his site

Seth Godin is not a health care professional.  But he is a smart guy who knows a lot about human nature and about process — what works and what doesn’t work for real people.  His solutions to problems aren’t high tech and shiny.  They are low tech, high touch, and effective.

So when the title of his post from yesterday, The simple form that could save your life, caught my eye, I took a closer look.  And it surprised me to see what could reasonably be described as “a patient’s report sheet” or “a patient’s brain.”  Not, of course, for the patient to use at shift change but to be used at ‘caretaker change’ when he or she sees a new doctor or nurse practitioner and is supposed to regurgitate a full health history on demand.

Seth’s idea isn’t particularly original.  My Dad certainly crafted a pair of Word docs something like this, for my Mom and him, a few years before he died.

But, in traditional Seth fashion, Godin a) sought professional help on the contents and b) is ‘going big’ on the distribution

Seth’s motto seems to be “if I think it is useful then everyone should have a copy.”

Take a look.  You may want to download the doc and help a parent or friend fill it out.  Or you might want to suggest the link to a patient who is embarking on one of those long voyages through the healthcare system where having the right info at the right time might just make a bit of a difference.

Here’s the link in clear text, so it is easy to copy and put in an email: