Health journal or medical record:
what is the difference.
Your medical record is written by clinicians, held by the clinic or hospital, and says what they found and did. A health journal is written by you, held by you, and says what you lived through between visits. You want both, and the journal is the one nobody else will keep.
The medical record
Every clinic, practice and hospital keeps its own record of you: consultations, diagnoses, prescriptions, test results, letters. It is written in clinical language, often split across several organisations that do not share, and it records the moments you were in front of a clinician. In most countries you have a right to see it and to a copy, and that is worth doing. What it cannot contain is the three weeks between appointments.
The health journal
A health journal is your own account: the symptoms as they happened, the doses you actually took, the night the cough started, the photo of the rash on day two, the question you meant to ask. It is in your words and it is dated by you. It belongs to you, it goes with you to a new doctor, and it is the only place the between-visits story exists.
Why you want both
| Medical record | Health journal | |
|---|---|---|
| Written by | Clinicians | You, or someone caring for you |
| Held by | The clinic or hospital | You |
| Covers | The visits | The time between them |
| Language | Clinical | Your own |
| Moves with you | Slowly, by request | Instantly, as an export |
| Decides what things mean | Yes | No |
The two meet at the appointment. The journal gives the clinician dates and detail they could not otherwise have; the clinician gives the judgement the journal should never attempt. A journal that scores or diagnoses is pretending to be the other thing.
Where Biojrnl fits
Biojrnl is a health journal, and it says so on every export: "Self-reported personal health journal. Not a medical record." It keeps symptoms, medicines, results you copy in, vaccinations, appointments and documents in date order, for you and for the people you look after, and it turns the record into a one-page Visit Prep summary for the clinician. It does not diagnose, interpret or score, and it is not a medical device. It works offline, the journal is encrypted on your phone, and the record exports on every plan. See why it exists and how privacy works.
Asked most often.
Can I get a copy of my medical record?
In most countries, yes, by asking the clinic or through its online service. Keep the copy with your own journal so the two sit side by side.
Is a health journal a legal medical record?
No. It is your own account, which is exactly its value. Clinicians treat it as patient-reported information, which they ask for all the time; they do not treat it as a clinical document.
Should a health journal interpret my results?
No. The moment an app tells you a number is bad it is practising medicine without seeing you. A journal records; your clinician reads.
Yours to keep,
in your pocket.
Biojrnl is on iPhone and Android. Free to start, no adverts, and your story stays yours.
Free to start. Made in the United Kingdom.