Healthcare Applications Can Be Helpful.
Healthcare applications can be helpful and useful for people with chronic health issues. And there are many applications on the market.
They can remind you when you need to take your medication. Keep track of your stock. For some, you can enter test results and your doctor appointments. This is all to help you to stay therapy compliant. The better you stick to what the doctors told/advised you to do or take, the better the results can be.
And This Is Where The Problems Begin.
“But you just said that they are there to help you?“. True. But when you start searching for these applications, you find out that there are hundreds of them. “So, Which one to choose?“. That is personal.
After my first operation, I had to start taking medication every day. Not all at once. I had different medications for different times in the day. At first, I used my alarm on my phone to help me to take my medication. But it was very simple.
After my second operation, I got more medication and more things to keep in mind. So I started to search and see if there maybe was an app for this. And there were. A lot. I had tested a few and finally, I stuck to one app.
I used it for many years and was content with it.
Then the app started to have some small problems. After contacting the developer, I was told that they were busy with developing a new app. This would be completely different from the app that I was using at the time. I also was told, that they would not do any further development or modifications to the app I was using.
They advised me to use the new one and see if this would work for me. After a few minutes, I already discovered a big problem. It was not possible to have a different quantity of a certain medication, on different days. All intake should be the same for every day you take it.
So I was “forced” to keep on using the original app. But after some time, this was giving some other problems again.
Not Really Honest or Helpful.
When things don’t work the way they should be, you will start looking for other solutions. So I started my search again. I was hit by hundreds of applications that could be of use for me. Where to start? This could take days before I could find something useful.
If you search for “free healthcare applications” on Google, you will be presented with several pages. The best thing to do is to start with the first one.
That one mentioned something like “10 Best Free Healthcare Applications“. After trying the first few, I was disappointed. The 10 Best Free Applications, were the ones that the writer thought were the best. But for me, none of them worked the way I needed it. And “free“? Not really. Some were free but were very limited. Only when you pay for it, you get more options. Others were full of advertising. Again, only if you pay for it, the advertising would be gone. The writer even suggested using your alarm and calendar on your mobile device.
It would be better if the heading of the article would say something like “My 10 Best Healthcare Applications or Suggestions“.
In other articles, they are saying that the application is advised or approved by a hospital. Okay, no problem. But when you check them out, you will find out that things are missing in them. Or that it has options you will never use. It would be better if they also would mention what specialty it was advised for. People that have a skin condition have different needs than someone who has diabetes or heart problems.
I even tried to contact some developers to check with them, if something was possible with the application. To my surprise, I never got any reaction.
Closing.
Healthcare applications can be very helpful when you have chronic health issues. This is true. But it can be very hard to find the right application for your needs.
There is so much. And you only know if it works for you, by trying it out for yourself. But that can take a lot of time.
In my opinion, people that write about this or advertise them should be clear and honest. If it is with advertising, then just mention it. Also if it is a “lite” version. Then at least, people know that it will be limited and that you can pay for it if you would like to have the full version. All these things can save you time and maybe disappointment.
For me, I am still searching. Maybe I am too critical? Not really. I need something that I can trust and that can be of help to me. So I have the right to be critical. It is my health.
As always, please take care and stay safe.
God Bless
For those who are interested, this story also can be found on Medium.
