I was at the doctor today. I had been there before so I did not have to do any new forms, but the woman in the lobby had to, and she was hard of hearing. She had her son with her and he was reading the form to her very loudly.
Him: Have you had a colonoscopy recently? Her: No, but I did have that hemroid operation a few years back. Him: Any gynecologic problems?
Anyway.....................the point is, there should be a standard form for medical history.
There should be a standard form for contact information. It should be a single 8x11 sheet and it should be used by everyone on the planet.
You should be able to include it with a job application or a doctor's visit or a passport or green card or food stamps or school form or for anything else you need to supply your address for.
Then, you need a "standard" form for medical/dental history. One for work experience. One for financial information.
Whether or not you choose to furnish any or all of this information, the point is, the form should be the same for everyone on the planet.
Then......you can keep a secure form of each of these standard forms and you should be able to email, fax, snail mail or upload to their secure web page.
It is so inefficient to have to fill out the same info over and over and over and over.
I have had to furnish financial information before and the amount of info I furnished varied greatly on what I supplied to who, but the form should be the same. If I send it in blank, it should still be the same form.
There could be a Wikiforms and let offices collaborate on what the standard form should look like.
States could even have a Wikiform for "Last Wishes and Final Arrangements" "Advanced medical directives"