Two or three chronic conditions: how to order appointments, reports and medicines
Managing several chronic conditions: how common multimorbidity is, how to order appointments and records by condition, and how Sam keeps one report per program.
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When you live with two or three chronic conditions, you often see different clinics and keep different records. You can order that with folders and sticky notes, or in Sam: letters and results from all your practices sit together in the Health Vault, and whatever belongs to no single condition goes into the symptom diary. This text shows how common this is and how to prepare each appointment, and it says plainly what Sam does not do.
This is general information, not a substitute for your own care. How your conditions interact is for your care team to say.
How common multiple conditions are
Having more than one long-term condition is usual, not rare. A whole-population study in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine found that nearly 15 percent of people in England live with two or more long-term conditions.
A separate 2025 review in JAMA Network Open reports that about half of people with a chronic condition have more than one. So if your own list holds two or three diagnoses, you are in a large group.
Why few apps fit someone with several conditions
Most digital health tools are built for one condition at a time. The 2025 JAMA review is a clear example. Its authors built a hypothetical woman, aged 79, with five common conditions: type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, COPD, osteoporosis and osteoarthritis.
The team searched US FDA device databases and the ORCHA app library, and found 148 digital health products registered or updated between 2019 and 2022. Only 5 of them, about 3 percent, were intended for two or more of these conditions. In a modelled plan, the patient would need up to 13 apps and 7 to 10 devices to cover the 28 functions that at least 3 of 5 health professionals thought important.
That is a burden, not a convenience. The data came from the US and the UK, and Sam was not part of the study. Of the five conditions in that example, Sam has a program for one, high blood pressure. So take any claim that one app covers everything with care.
Keep the threads with your GP or family doctor
UK guidance for multimorbidity, NICE guideline NG56, is about tailoring care to the person. It aims to reduce treatment burden, including polypharmacy and multiple appointments, and to base decisions on what matters to each person.
Patient experts feel this too. A 2025 King's Fund blog describes care organised around single specialties, where clinicians sometimes give contradictory advice and do not always talk to one another. The person living with the conditions often ends up holding the threads.
Your GP or family doctor, or your primary care provider, is the one place that usually sees the whole picture. Specialist practices do not always know what other practices found. How your conditions and treatments affect each other is a question for your care team, not for an app. An app can only order your own records.
Order your records by condition, not by person
The clearest way to stay on top of several conditions is to sort by condition, then by date. Each practice wants the course of the condition it treats, not your whole life story.
For every condition keep three things in sight: the current medicine list, the latest letters and results, and the record of how you are doing. Keep one complete, up-to-date medication list that your doctor or pharmacist reviews and reconciles. In Sam you hold a personal medication list with reminders and an intake log, separate from any program.
Letters and results from every practice can live in one place. In Sam that is the Health Vault: doctor's letters, lab results, imaging reports and prescriptions as photos or PDFs, so you are not hunting through screenshots before an appointment.
What is shared across conditions, and what is per condition
Some things in Sam apply to your whole account. Others each program keeps for itself. A program is a diary for one condition, with its own monthly questionnaire and its own doctor report as a PDF. You start a program after a doctor has confirmed the condition.
| Area | Applies to | How it works |
|---|---|---|
| Apple Health | all conditions | One connection for everything. Some programs place sleep or other values beside your entries. |
| Symptoms | all conditions | One diary for anything that fits no program. |
| Medical documents | all conditions | Letters and results from all practices in one place. |
| Monthly report | all conditions | Shows wellness data, plus your illness and symptom days. Program data is not in it. |
| Diary | per program | Its own fields for that condition. |
| Monthly questionnaire | per program | One per program. |
| Doctor report | per program | A PDF per program for 1, 3, 6 or 12 months or the whole record. |
| Reminders and intake log | one personal medication list | Separate from the programs. The doctor report of a program lists the medicines that belong to that program. |
There is no shared doctor report. Each program makes its own, and you bring the PDFs that fit the appointment. More on this in what belongs in a report for the doctor.
An example: three diagnoses, three appointments
This is an invented example, not a case history. Say you have migraine, high blood pressure and hay fever, and a doctor has confirmed all three.
You set up a program for each condition. For high blood pressure and hay fever you take regular medicines, so you set reminders and keep the intake log. With migraine you record an acute medicine when needed in the attack entry, and a preventive medicine on its own schedule.
Before the neurology appointment you make the migraine report. For the allergy clinic you take the hay fever report. Into the GP or primary care practice you bring the blood pressure report. If you want to show all three, ask the practice first.
How to prepare each visit is covered in the doctor appointment checklist for a chronic condition, and what a health app can and cannot do is worth a read before you rely on any tool.
What Sam does not do
- There is no shared doctor report. Each program makes its own.
- There is no check for interactions between medicines. Questions about that go to your doctor or pharmacist.
- The programs do not show links between your conditions. Each diary stands alone.
- For diabetes, atrial fibrillation, heart failure, ME/CFS, long COVID, POTS and fibromyalgia there are no programs, only guide pages.
- There is no import of diaries from other apps, and no forecast of pollen days ahead.
- An empty day or empty record means no entry, not that nothing happened. See your own health record vs a health app for how your records differ from your clinic's.
Sam reads Apple Health and places some values beside your entries. What your numbers mean is for your care team to explain.
Keep records and reports for every condition in Sam
You go to each appointment with the report that fits, not pieced together from memory.
- Against paper and screenshots: letters and results from all your practices sit together in the Health Vault, reachable on the go.
- Against a notes app: each condition with a program keeps its own diary and doctor report as a PDF, with the time range and course arranged.
- Against Apple Health alone: sleep and other values come in from Apple Health in some programs, and you only enter what you know yourself.
- Against a paper medication sheet: the medication list holds reminders and an intake log for scheduled medicines.
Start with the condition whose next appointment is soonest, from the programs. There is no program for every condition; the symptom diary and monthly report cover the rest.
Try Sam for freeSam is a wellness companion, not a medical device. The app does not diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any condition or health state. Always consult qualified professionals for medical decisions.
Related reading
- How to prepare a report for the doctor
- Symptom diary: template or app
- Doctor appointment checklist for a chronic condition
- What a health app can and cannot do
Sources
Updated: October 2026
- NICE: Multimorbidity: clinical assessment and management (NG56)
- Valabhji J, et al: Prevalence of multiple long-term conditions (multimorbidity) in England: a whole population study of over 60 million people. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 2023 and the related Imperial College London summary
- Phi NTT, et al: Cumulative Burden of Digital Health Technologies for Patients With Multimorbidity: A Systematic Review. JAMA Network Open 2025;8(4):e257288
- King's Fund: The reality of living with multiple long-term conditions
More on recording and taking it along
Frequently Asked Questions
How common is it to have several chronic conditions?+
Common. Official UK data in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine found nearly 15 percent of people in England live with two or more long-term conditions. The JAMA review that this post cites says about half of people with a chronic condition have more than one.
Can I keep asthma and hay fever in Sam at the same time?+
Yes. Asthma and hay fever each have their own program, with its own diary and its own doctor report as a PDF. When you start each program you confirm that a doctor has diagnosed the condition. How many programs the app allows is shown in the app.
Is there one shared doctor report for several conditions?+
No. Each program makes its own doctor report as a PDF, for 1, 3, 6 or 12 months or the whole record. You bring to the appointment the reports that fit that practice. Ask first whether the practice wants to see them.
Does Sam replace the medication list my doctor keeps?+
No. Your care team keeps and reviews your full medicine list, and a pharmacist or doctor reconciles it. In Sam you keep a personal medication list, separate from the programs, with reminders and an intake log. It is not a clinical medication record.
Does Sam show how my conditions affect each other?+
No. The programs do not show links between your conditions; each diary stands on its own. Whether and how your conditions and treatments interact is a question for your doctors. You bring each condition's course as its own report.
Which conditions have no program in Sam?+
Programs exist for high blood pressure, migraine, epilepsy, panic disorder, asthma, hay fever, reflux and gout. For diabetes, atrial fibrillation, heart failure, ME/CFS, long COVID, POTS and fibromyalgia there are guide pages but no program. You can still record symptoms in the symptom diary.
Can I import data from other apps?+
There is no import of diaries from other apps. Values that other apps store in Apple Health can be read by Sam when a program uses them, for example blood pressure from a connected cuff. An exported PDF you can keep among your medical documents.