Medication schedules and the dose-due reminder

On Prescriptions, open a medication, open its Dose and schedule section, and find When is it taken? It has three choices. At set times: add each clock time from the label (7:00 AM, 1:00 PM, 7:00 PM) and remove any with its ×. Every N hours: pick 4, 6, 8, 12 or 24 hours and the time of the first dose of the day. Not set: nothing reminds, and the dose chips follow the words in When and Times per day, as they always have. Enter the times from the prescription or the pharmacy label. ExpressAgain reminds; it does not decide when a medicine is taken.

Every N hours follows the doses that were actually given. The first dose of the day is due at the time you set. Each next one is due that many hours after the last dose given that day, so with every 12 hours from 7:00 AM, a morning dose given at 7:40 AM makes the evening dose due at 7:40 PM. If nothing was given yet, the next one is due at its usual place on the clock. The preview under the choices says it in words before you close the medication.

The dosing day: a day's doses run from the first dose at or after 4:00 AM to the one that follows after midnight, so a time earlier than the day's first time is the last dose of the day before, due on the next clock day. With 6 AM, 2 PM, 6 PM and 2 AM, Tuesday's four doses are 6 AM, 2 PM and 6 PM on Tuesday and the 2 AM that follows on Wednesday's clock: the pop-up reads Rosa's 2 AM taper dose is due · the last of Tuesday's four, the dose chip and Tuesday's log read 2:00 AM (Wed), and tapping that chip logs Tuesday's last dose, never Wednesday's first. For the rare schedule where the day begins with a different dose, open When is it taken? and pick it under The day starts with the … dose (shown when a time falls before 4 AM); doses logged before this change keep their stored day, and the app reads each one on the right dosing day by itself.

Counts as on time is a window around each dose, one hour before or after unless you choose 30 minutes, 1½ hours or 2 hours. Medications due at the same minute form one set, like the 7 PM set. Sets due within an hour of the first one, with on-time windows that overlap, are asked together as one: medications at 8:00, 8:30 and 9:00 AM come up in one pop-up, not three. Only active medications remind; a paused or stopped one never does. Nothing is asked about a dose that was due before the schedule was set.

Thirty minutes before a set's time (or when its window opens, if you chose a window narrower than that), a pop-up on every page asks the person signed in, using the patient's first name (for example, Rosa's 7 PM medications are due), with each medication, its strength and how much. When more than one set is due, or one is still waiting from earlier, they are all in the same pop-up, listed by time (8 AM, 8:30 AM, 9 AM), with a heading like Rosa's morning medications are due. A taper dose is the exception: it keeps its own time and is asked on its own, with a heading like Rosa's 6:35 PM taper dose is due, before or after the regular medications due near it. A taper step given every so many hours follows the doses given, like any every-N-hours schedule; a step set At set times in Change the taper (like 6 AM, 2 PM, 6 PM and 2 AM) is asked at exactly those times every day of the step. Given now logs all of them as given, now, under your name. Given earlier asks for one time and uses it for all of them (it can't be in the future). Not all of them lets you mark each one Given, Skipped or Refused, and leaves the rest open. Remind me in 15 minutes, or the Escape key, puts the whole pop-up away on this device for 15 minutes. If someone else logged one of them in the meantime, it is skipped, never logged twice. Once anyone logs the set, it stops asking for everyone, because it reads the same dose log as the chips. After an answer is saved, a line at the top says so, like Saved: Eliquis 5 mg, 7 AM set, given at 6:20 AM. It shows on Prescriptions and today's log. It names every medication saved and every set. The pop-up keeps asking until 30 minutes after the last time in it (a set due between 6:00 and 7:00 AM pops up at 5:30 and asks until 7:30). After that it becomes the slim banner at the top of the page, which covers nothing; Open on the banner brings back the same answers, so the set can still be logged.

Out of a medication: when a medication has run out, tap Out of a medication in the pop-up. With one medication due it reads Out of Lisinopril, and one tap logs it as out of medication — not given and closes that dose. With several, it asks Which one is out?: tick each one that is out and tap Log as out — not given; the others stay in the pop-up, and Given now then covers them. Not all of them has Out of medication as a fourth answer for each one too. The saved line says, for example, Logged: Lisinopril out — not given at 8 AM. The family has been told. While a medication is out, the pop-up shows how long under its name (Out since Oct 12 · 2 days · 3 doses missed) and offers Still out of Lisinopril as the first answer, so every dose missed while it is out is recorded. It works the same for the professional on shift, from the banner's Open, and when nobody is clocked in. Prescriptions explains the refill side: Needs a refill, Running low, Refill requested and Refill picked up.

A medication with no time set under When is it taken? is never in the pop-up or the phone reminder, and nothing is logged for it. An as-needed medication (Active (as needed) on Prescriptions) is never in them either, whatever times it carries, and it is not counted as having no time set. When an active medication taken today has no time set, the pop-up and Prescriptions show one line, like 2 medications have no time set, so they're not in reminders: Set a time. Set a time opens the first of them on Prescriptions at When is it taken?. On the care dashboard the line says the family sets the times on Prescriptions.

If the window closes with the set still not logged, the banner turns amber, Not logged yet, and Open asks: Was the 7 PM set given? with the same answers and Mark as missed. Mark as missed stops the question for everyone and logs nothing, so the Medications report and the weekly summary for the doctor still count those doses as missed. It is one set at a time: with several in the pop-up, each set whose window has closed gets its own button, like Mark the 8 AM set as missed. The question stays until the pop-up of a set due later (more than an hour after it) opens, and never longer than 12 hours.

Who sees it: whoever runs the account and caregiver-role accounts in the family app, and every care-team and Home Team login on the care dashboard. They are the people who log doses. Family members, friends and the patient's own sign-in never see it.

Who is on shift decides how it shows, for each person. The professional who is clocked in with the patient (Clock in on the care dashboard) gets the pop-up exactly as above: it stays until they answer, or tap Remind me in 15 minutes. While someone else is clocked in, everyone else (for example the family member who runs the account) gets no pop-up at all, just a slim banner at the top of the page, like Rosa's 6 PM medications are due · Jewel is on shift. Open on the banner shows the full pop-up, to log it if the family gave it; Close goes back to the banner. The × hides that set's banner on this device until the next set; it logs nothing and tells no one. If the set's window closes with nothing logged, the banner turns amber: Not logged yet: Rosa's 6 PM medications · Jewel is on shift. It still covers nothing on the page. When nobody is clocked in, the pop-up shows for everyone who logs doses, with one more choice at the bottom, I'm not with Rosa right now — close: it puts that set away on this device and logs nothing (Remind me in 15 minutes is still there). The banner and the pop-up name only the first name of whoever is clocked in with this patient, never anyone else's patients.

On a phone: turn on notifications for this phone, and Medication reminders is one of the switches under What reaches this phone, on to start. A login whose phone could still turn them on sees Get these on your phone at the bottom of the pop-up and the banner; it opens the Notifications on this phone card right there (on an iPhone, the two Add to Home Screen steps first). Once they are on, Send a test notification on the card sends one to your own phone, at most once a minute, so you can see it works.

When a set is due and a professional is clocked in, the reminder goes to the professional on shift only, not to the family and not to the rest of the team. When nobody is clocked in, it goes to whoever runs the account, caregiver-role accounts, and the circle's own care-team and Home Team logins, as before; a practice or organization that follows the patient's care sees the pop-up when it opens the patient's dashboard, but gets no phone reminder for it. It says only which set is due, like The evening set is due, with no name, no medicine and no time on the lock screen; tap it and the dose log opens. Sets asked together come as one reminder, when the first one's window opens. It is checked every 15 minutes, so it can arrive up to 15 minutes after the window opens.

Not logged yet: if a set's window closes with nothing logged and nobody marked it missed, whoever runs the account and caregiver-role accounts get The evening set isn't logged yet, with who is on shift, like Jewel is on shift, and the professional clocked in gets it too (It's still open on your shift). It comes once per set, within 15 minutes of the window closing, never again for that set, and never when the set was logged (given, skipped, refused or out of medication) or marked as missed. Both reminders come during Quiet at night too, because a night dose is the reason for them.