Technology has been infiltrating our medicine just as it has in all aspects of our life – school, banking, cooking, shopping, etc. Our doctors have laptops or iPads that they bring into the exam room. We are given accounts to “patient portals” to be able to view test results or communicate with our doctors.
How do you feel about it? I think it’s a good thing – it makes me a little nervous, but generally I feel that technology will improve the quality of care that we receive. I’m all for sharing of the info – especially the demographic info that I have to fill out 3x for 3 children. That part, however, seems to be slow in coming.
When I prepared to undergo chemo, I came to learn that I would have several different medications to take and keep track, and a lot of other over the counter remedies that I may need. I’ve never been very good about taking the supplements I should be taking (calcium, etc.) – I never seemed to remember long enough to get into a routine. I figured that I’d need to be better about that with my anti-nausea meds. I was advised that I may even want to wake up in the middle of the night to take anti-nausea drugs. So, I set about finding an application that could be downloaded to my phone and help me keep track.
I’m happy to say that I’ve been quite please and assisted with MedHelper. It’s an application that lets you add your doctors, appointments, medications, and schedule for taking medications with reminders. I apologize that this post is not going to be a full review of different options for a medical app – I did do some research before I started using MedHelper, but I have not looked at or tried any other apps that might be out there. MedHelper was everything that I was looking for, so I stopped there.
I could see this working very well for an elderly parent. I also had my daughter, who is a type 1 diabetic, download the iOS version so that she could keep track of her supplements, when she needs to switch out her infusion set and her sensor.
It does take some time to set up – you need to add all your medications so that you can schedule them. If you want to use the appointment tracker, you need to add your doctors. I realize that you could use your calendar and contact apps for most of this, but I found it much easier to have it in its own app. The reminders were different than the calendar reminders – and they have custom actions where you can skip a dose, for example – say you have a supplement that you want to remember to take if you need it, but you skip it because you don’t need it. It also lets you track the time and dose that you take.
There is also a place to track “Vitals” – so if you have to take your blood pressure and record it on a regular basis, this has a place for you to record it. It also has all the other key vitals such as temperature, pulse, and oxygen levels.
The MedHelper app also allows you to export this data for reporting purposes. You might not need a feature like this on a general basis, but if you have a chronic condition or are in treatment, the reporting is very helpful to identify trends and adjust medications accordingly. Or, if you are tracking your blood pressure, for example, this would allow you to create a report to bring to the doctor to show the blood pressure data.
I’d like to think that this application is only necessary if you have an illness or condition, but my experience has been that our doctors don’t really know/remember our histories, so it’s probably a very good idea to keep track of this information ourselves. If you decide to do that, I recommend MedHelper as a way to do so.
What do you use to keep track of your medical information?
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