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You don’t have to be over 50 to have a “senior moment” trying to recall a prescription drug name or the date of that knee surgery when filling out a medical history form at your doctor’s office.

MedCard, a new medical information card, could make it easier for Iowans to track their medications and medical histories. The Iowa Healthcare Collaborative (IHC), a consortium of health-care providers, recently began distributing the cards to hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and other health-care providers throughout the state. Using the cards, people can record their basic health information in a format designed to make it easy to carry it with them, said Dr. Tom Evans, the collaborative’s president.

“This becomes a tool where it promotes discussion between the provider and the patient; it promotes questions being asked,” he said. “The most important role for the MedCard is that it engages the patient as an active participant in their care. Too often, patients go to the doctor and do what they’re told, and actually may be afraid to ask questions. The MedCard gives them an active step, something they can fill out and own, and it makes them a partner in the process. And that is critical for us all in improving quality, patient safety and reducing costs.”

The low-tech paper cards require the patients using them to fill out the information themselves, preferably with a pencil so they can easily update it if their medications change.

The IHC, a partnership between the Iowa Hospital Association and the Iowa Medical Society, is working with those two organizations along with the Iowa Foundation for Medical Care and the Iowa Pharmacy Association to develop a statewide distribution strategy for the cards. Their campaign to encourage use of the cards is called “Know It. Show It. Tell It.”

About 7 inches square, the two-sided card folds to a wallet-sized rectangle and can be slipped into a plastic sleeve provided with each card. The cards and promotional materials for use by health-care providers were funded through a $50,000 grant from the Wellmark Foundation. The collaborative plans to use the funds to produce and distribute 150,000 of the cards initially.

“We’re kind of midstream right now with the distribution,” said Gerd Clabaugh, the IHC’s director of operations. So far, 70,000 cards have been distributed to all 117 hospitals in the state, as well as to each of the more than 800 physicians’ offices and more than 500 pharmacies.

For the remainder, “we’re looking for additional opportunities to engage state agencies, employer groups, private employers, anyone who might have a population of employees,” he said. “Obviously, many employers provide health insurance, so as part of that there may be an opportunity to provide the cards to their employees.”

Evans said the increasing use of electronic medical records systems will in no way diminish the value of the MedCard program.

“The MedCard is really an individually focused tool,” he said. “Having an electronic medical record isn’t going to engage the patient.” By encouraging health-care providers to ask to look at their patient’s MedCard during each office, clinic or pharmacy visit, “the MedCard is designed to engage our patients in their care.”

In addition to distributing the cards, the IHC also is encouraging health-care providers or other organizations that want to use them to download free templates. “This is just a community tool we’re putting out there as shareware,” Evans said. “We hope that a hospital will pull it off the Web site, put their logo on it and promote it to their patients.”