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Editor’s note: Alena discusses medication tracking software, its types, functionality and benefits. If you consider developing a medication tracking app, ScienceSoft’s mobile medical app offering is at your service.
Medication tracking software can effectively serve two different purposes – facilitate pill intake control and provide drug inventory management. Based on my experience in healthcare IT, I’d like to show how medication tracking software can make an asset for both healthcare organizations and healthcare software product companies.
Patient medication tracking: pill intake software
What is pill intake software for?
This type of software is used for managing medication intake, which can be difficult for outpatients, especially for elder people, people with mental disorders or those who have to take many drugs. Besides patients themselves, such software can help control pill intake for caregivers.
How does pill intake software function?
Medication tracking software simplifies the pill intake control process. It can send a reminder to an outpatient to take a medication and notify a caregiver about pill intake using a synchronized meds intake calendar. Also, a patient can scan the QR code on a medication package before taking a pill for a system to record medication data. Using this data, the app can send a reminder about the need to refill/renew a prescription to a patient and a caregiver
Among optional functions of the pill intake application, it can provide medication info blocks, track the physical activity of a user, offer live videoconferencing for caregivers and outpatients, etc.
Why should you consider pill intake software?
For healthcare organizations (hospitals, clinics, living facilities, etc.), pill intake solutions can help raise patients’ engagement and loyalty, thus increasing potential revenue from medical care services.
As for healthcare software product companies, they can increase the popularity of their existing or planned software by adding medication tracking functionality. This can be a new idea that will attract more users.
How to ensure pill intake software success?
To ensure that users will like an app, I always recommend our customers to do market research before a project launch to reveal more details on required functionality and preferred UX and UI. I also advise running beta testing to uncover and fix minor issues with the app before introducing it to users. Surely, I believe that work on the application does not end after its release, so it’s vital to continuously gather user feedback to evolve the application and ensure user loyalty.
Medical inventory: drug inventory tracking software
What is drug inventory tracking software for?
Medical inventory tracking software is used mainly for monitoring the supply and usage of medication. Drug inventory tracking systems provide detailed asset information, including drug description, location, expiration date, patient and doctor/nurse affiliation, number of expected prescriptions, etc.
How does drug inventory tracking software work?
Drug inventory solutions allow centralized and paperless med inventory life cycle management. Thus, a medication inventory tracking application automatically monitors the drug supply level with the help of barcodes and RFID tags with unique identification numbers for each inventory item. The system can send a reminder if the supply level is low, track medication delivery and provide for special count for controlled medication, as was the case in ScienceSoft’s project on the development of electronic medication administration record (EMAR) software.
Why should you consider drug inventory tracking software?
Healthcare organizations can leverage medication inventory management with reduced operational costs and medication waste.
Healthcare software product companies can increase their chances of success on the as the demand for efficient drug inventory tracking software grows.
How to ensure drug inventory tracking software success?
The medication tracking application should be RFID-enabled to bring real value and allow for real-time medication tracking and data collecting. However, RFID integration brings in additional operational costs that can negatively affect the application’s popularity among customers of a healthcare software product company.
To minimize such risks, we at ScienceSoft offer various ways to optimize related costs, for example, depending on the use of an RFID tag type (passive or active). Systems with passive RFID tags are cheaper, as they use tags without an internal power source. Systems with active RFID tags are much more expensive because they use battery-powered tags, but such systems allow a longer RFID read range. So, the feasibility of RFID type to implement should be defined individually in each case.
Make your medication tracking app a success!
A medication tracking app can serve two completely different functions – pill intake and drug inventory tracking or even cover them both in one complex app ecosystem. If you want to create medication tracking software and need help at any stage of the development cycle – from consulting to an application’s support and evolution, feel free to reach out to ScienceSoft’s team.
Looking for a solution to your healthcare IT challenge? Our experienced healthcare consultants are here to help.
