Why use a patient journal?

You might ask, after seeing that title, what is a patient journal?  The simplest definition is it’s a way to learn your own reactions and use of cannabis as medicine so that over time, you can discover what strains and what products have historically helped your personal conditions.

Patient journals are a combination of education, medication history, and results.  A good patient journal includes explanations about terpenes, cannabinoids, and delivery methods.  The bulk of the journal allows patients to track their use of different strains, different delivery methods, and how those effected them on specific dates.  They encourage the user to make notes about mood, pain, and the experience of using that particular day’s medicine to keep track.

Once a patient has documented a series of days, they can start to use the data to educate themselves about what seemed to work well, or what worked even better, and also starts to establish a pattern of which terpenes and cannabinoids seem to provide the best results, which means the next time they’re looking for products they can make purchase decisions based on actual data specific to them.

Dispensaries and cannabis clinicians have been talking about Patient Journals and the added customer value they bring to patients, especially for those new-to-cannabis-medicine.