Back-to-school clothes ready? Check. Backpacks filled with pencils and notebooks? Check. Summer reading list complete? Check. Kids’ health and immunization records ready to share with schools and sports teams. Uh-oh. Not so fast!

In the hectic days leading up to a new school year, the last thing parents and caregivers want to juggle is their children’s health and immunization records – documents many school districts require in August. Many dread it for good reason. Gathering those records can mean multiple phone calls, sitting on terminal hold, and digging to find passwords to various patient portals. Or both. In the end, it can result in a confusing assortment of paper and electronic records.

That’s why health technology pioneer DrFirst developed the Huddle Health app – to give people better access to their medical records and the ability to share them, as needed, with family caregivers, clinicians, and children’s schools. Consumers’ data is stored securely in the cloud, and accounts are protected with a PIN, fingerprint, or Face ID, depending on the user’s preference.

Parents have a lot on their plates, so this mobile hub for health records makes it easy to manage medical information with different profiles for yourself, your spouse, and your children – even for parents or other relatives if needed. And the “co-manage” function allows both spouses and divorced parents to access some or all of their child’s health records.

Huddle Health makes it easy for parents to manage:

• Immunization records
• Sports forms
• Allergy information
• Care plans and visit notes
• Current and previous medications
• Labs, X-rays, and other diagnostics

A recent consumer survey by DrFirst found that nearly all Americans (92%) feel it is important to have their health records readily accessible. Yet, about half (47%) find it difficult to nearly impossible to get them when needed.

The survey also showed that:

• More than half of Americans (54%) find it difficult to manage their healthcare records
• People are managing their health records by:
  • Keeping paper copies (36%)
  • Not storing them at all (32%)
  • Digital copies on their computer or in the cloud (29%)
  • Secure mobile app (23%)
  • Photos or notes on their phone (13%)
• Nearly half of Americans (44%) share health records with family members, close friends, or personal caregivers
• Roughly a quarter of Americans (22%) manage health records for someone else, primarily for their children and spouse, parent, grandparent, or another elderly relative
• Nearly all Americans (88%) would welcome using a mobile app to track all their medical records and keep them secure

During back-to-school season and beyond, Huddle Health allows parents to have the health information they need at their fingertips, rather than storing and carrying stacks of paper copies or at home on a computer.