2:24 p.m., June 15, 2009----Two University of Delaware graduates are encouraging individuals to maintain personal health records as a safeguard through a book titled Keeping Healthy by Keeping Track: A Complete Guide to Maintaining Your Own Medical Records.

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The book, co-written by Lillian Shah, a 1974 education graduate, and Laura Messinger, a 1986 graduate who earned a bachelor's degree in anthropology, was recently honored by the Delaware Press Association with the prestigious Best Book 2009 award.

The book emphasizes the importance of good medical record keeping. In it, Shah and Messinger urge readers to create a personal health record in notebook form. The record should include current health status, family history, office visit records, medications, lab and test result and hospital summaries, plus insurance, financial and legal data.

Having all this information in one easy to find location is invaluable -- both in an emergency and more routine situations - they write.

The authors have been featured on local and national television and radio, and in numerous newspapers and magazines. Their book has been noted as being a particularly useful tool for caregivers.

Shah and Messinger, both hailing from Wilmington, Del., were inspired to pull together their notebook system after acting as caregivers for their terminally ill mothers and for Shah's elder sister.

Shah is currently teaching a popular 13-week course at the University of Delaware's Academy of Lifelong Learning on their proactive approach to taking responsibility for one's own medical records. By the end of the term, each student wilI have a notebook containing all his or her pertinent and up-to-date health information.

Shah is the founder and retired director of the Elementary Workshop Montessori School in downtown Wilmington, where Messinger continues to direct the after-school program.

Keeping Healthy by Keeping Track comes with a CD of the 95 record keeping charts included in the book. This CD allows individuals to select and use charts that are relevant to their specific medical circumstances.

More information about the book and its authors is available online.