MyMedSchedule Mobile is the highest rated app for medication adherence in a new study from the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association. 160 apps were considered, and 10 were chosen for testing. MyMedSchedule emerged with the highest rating. The study highlighted MyMedSchedule's broad functionality and particularly noted the availability of MedActionPlan programs that allow healthcare professionals to send schedules to MyMedSchedule users:

“Websites like http://www.medactionplan.com, the companion site for the app MyMedSchedule, offer regimen-building options that are useful for patients in specialty areas that often carry a high medication burden (e.g., organ transplant, human immunodeficiency virus [HIV], hematology, oncology). Health professionals can enter simple or complex medication regimens using extensive medications databases that can be pushed to patients' mobile device with reminders enabled. Regimens also are stored on a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-compliant cloud server that enables patient profiles to be retrieved and modified with any new instructions and then resent to patients' devices on subsequent encounters.”

See the full article at MedScape.com.

The Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing examines the role of oncology nurses and the rise of oral chemotherapy medications. MedActionPlan is featured as a helpful resource for patient education.

Read the paper at MedScape.com (free membership required).

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has compiled a useful list for anyone interested in issues concerning care transitions. The top 5 items listed are:

1. Hospital readmissions are a real problem.
2. Hospitals are paying the price for readmissions.
3. Patients and providers are both overwhelmed.
4. Hospitals and doctors’ offices need to talk to each other.
5. For patients, knowledge about their health = power.

To see the rest of the list and all the details, see this PDF on the RWJF website. 

A really nice comment from the MyMedSchedule Facebook page:

“I’ve been using MyMedSchedule for about 2 years now for my father’s meds. We have 17 different meds we are currently keeping up with because he has a weak heart and is prone to congestive heart failure. I would love to shake the person’s hand that came up with this because it definitely made my life a lot better. I thought I was going to go absolutely crazy trying to keep up with all this, especially when his meds will change just a little with each doctor visit and then you have all the refills needed at different times and insuring you are getting the prescriptions just as the insurance company needs it... It’s something else, how hard it is. I wish the word would get out to more people about this because they do not know how much better MyMedSchedule can make it. THANK YOU!!!”

KidNeedsaKidney is a blog that follows a mom and her child through kidney failure and the transplant process. In this post she looks at the issue of compliance:

Compliance is a term used in medicine to indicate how well a patient is following directions. If I'm told to take a pill once a day and I do, I am compliant. If I'm told to follow a diet and exercise program, and I don't, I'm non-compliant.

With Babygirl, compliance is largely up to us. We buy the medications, make sure the refills are called in on time, sort the pills and measure the liquids into syringes. I have a text message sent to my phone twice daily from MyMedSchedule.com to remind ME to remind HER to take her medications. I schedule her appointments, TAKE her to those appointments, and make sure any necessary tests get scheduled and performed in a timely manner.

I've been doing all of this for almost a year and a half now.

All except one thing.

Read the rest here.

The Hopeful Parents blog, written by and for parents of kids with special needs, looks at steps you can take to prevent or deal with medical errors. The article has suggestions that cover several types of problems:

• Duplicate tests or unnecessary invasive procedures
• Secondary infections
• Medication errors or side effects
• Emotional impact on families

MyMedSchedule is recommended as a tool to “to ensure our child is getting all her medications and compare it to the nurses list each time.” Read the whole post here.

ThirdAge.com (“Health for Boomers and Beyond”) offers some tips to help you manage your medications. Author Barbara Bronson Gray, RN, MN suggests trying MyMedSchedule to maintain a complete medication list:

MyMedSchedule.com offers free systems to set refill reminders, maintain medicine schedules for you and for others in the household, print your schedule in English or Spanish, and create a wallet-size schedule to keep with you.

The Gastic Bypass Coaching blog looks at tips for remembering to take vitamins. One recommendation is to use MyMedSchedule. Of course, MyMedSchedule also helps you remember your medications.

Read the article here.

Life After IEPs looks at tools that help children manage their own medications, spotlighting MyMedSchedule: 

Even if your child needs help entering the data, setting the notifications and carrying out the re-fill process, s/he can gain real independence by:

• Using phone prompts rather than adult reminders to take medications
• Using the wallet-size checklist to tell healthcare providers about medications
• Using the prescription refill reminders to prompt asking for help ordering refills

View the whole article. 

“Bod Boss” has some good suggestions for making it easier to manage multiple medications, including:

“MyMedSchedule.com offers free systems to set refill reminders, maintain medicine schedules for you and for others in the household, print your schedule in English or Spanish, and create a wallet-size schedule to keep with you.”