For this month’s Medical Outreach Meeting, Dr. Stephanie Meredith presented on how to create and share electronic release forms.
Creating a Release Form
Release forms help providers share patient information with advocacy organizations, and give advocacy organizations a clear pathway to communicate with families. Having both print and electronic release forms can be useful to meet the needs of different families, and it is especially helpful to have your release form easily accessible on your website so that it can be downloaded by providers and families.
You may create your own release form, or you may use an existing template. In this meeting, we reviewed the following release forms as excellent examples:
- Massachusetts Down Syndrome Congress: https://mdsc.org/programs/for-healthcare-professionals/
- Postnatal Release Form (English), Postnatal Release Form (Spanish), and Postnatal Release Form (Portuguese) for new families
- Prenatal Release Form (English) and Prenatal Release Form (Spanish) for expectant families
- Down Syndrome Network of Montgomery County: https://dsnmc.org/community/medical-professionals.html
- Birth Referrals: Release Form (English) and Release Form (Spanish)
- Expectant Parent Referrals: Prenatal Release Form (English) and Prenatal Release Form (Spanish)
Signing Release Forms Electronically
With fax machines becoming harder to come by, it can be helpful for patients to sign a release form electronically. For example:
- JotForm allows you to create, share, and e-sign electronic documents. JotForm also allows you to create signable healthcare documents that are HIPAA-compliant.
- ShareFile also allows you to create and share e-signable electronic documents, including HIPAA-compliant healthcare documents. ShareFile also and offers email and file encryption for sharing private patient information.
- Apps like Genius Scan allow you to scan signed paper forms right from your phone and export them as a PDF.
Updates from the Team
Check out the following new resources shared by our participants:
- Watch this presentation on sexual health from the Down Syndrome Association of Houston: Laughter is the Best Medicine: How to Get Through Puberty Years and Deal With Sexually Inappropriate Behaviors for Individuals with IDD
- These important topics can sometimes feel challenging to talk about, but psychologist Brandon and Dr. Michelle offer insight, humor, and practical tools to help us navigate them with confidence and compassion.
- Read Dr. Meredith’s blog series The Rebirth of Eugenics: Tech Bros and Pronatalism. This series tracks the rise of the pronatalism movement in Silicon Valley, the threads of eugenics woven into the fabric of that movement, and the snags of humanity that may yet unravel a carefully stitched path toward a dystopian future.
- Part 1: The Threads of 20th Century Eugenics Interwoven with Modern Pronatalism
- Part 2: Weaving Together Unlikely Allies in Defense of Good Parenting
- Part 3 and Part 4 will be released next week at https://blog.geneticsupportfoundation.org/
- Support our fundraising efforts to translate Lettercase Down syndrome resources into Haitian Creole here! We currently have $545 raised of our $2,000 goal!
