We often embrace the title of parent. It’s something that comes naturally when we have children. But there’s a lot that a grown-up has to do that involves taking care of the entire household.
I often tell my husband that even though I work from home, I’ve got a tough job. I’m the household manager. While we both work as a team around the house, I’m generally the one that makes sure we have toilet paper at all times, never run out of milk, and always have our prescriptions refilled.
Sometimes the household manager job only get noticed when something goes wrong.
I recently traveled to New York City as part of the Johnson & Johnson team attending LATISM13. While my husband is perfectly capable of figuring things out, I was trying to make things easy for him while I was gone. And that included doling out medicine for my dog, Emma.
She was recently diagnosed with congestive heart failure and subsequently takes 3 medicines two times a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening. And recently, she developed a skin infection that requires an oral antibiotic twice a day. Yes, she’s like another child in the house.
I portioned out her pills and left instructions on when and how to give her the medications she needs. But I have to be honest, it’s a struggle for me to remember my medications and my husband doesn’t have it easy either. He’s a Type II diabetic and taking medications to help manage his blood sugar is vital.
So what’s a household manager to do? Get help from my phone. It is the digital age after all!
Janssen Healthcare Innovation is offering its newly launched app, Care4Today™ Mobile Health Manager 2.0, to help you stay on schedule with your medications. And in addition to helping you, it can help you manage your family’s medication needs as well.
Why It’s Important:
- Approximately 50% of patients with chronic illnesses do not take their medications as prescribed
- People often overlook taking medications at the right time every day
- The most commonly cited reason is they simply forget
How It Works
Start by downloading the Care4Today app on your mobile device (Android or iOS) or visit the Care4Today mobile website. Create an account and set up reminders for any kind of prescription or over-the-counter medication, nutritional supplement or any other activity.
Using secure, two-way messaging on your phone, a reminder message is displayed at the appropriate time and prompts a response that is recorded in your adherence report. At a glance, it’s easy to see if you’re on track.
Helping Your Family
With the Care4Family option, you can link family members to your account, which enables you to monitor medication adherence. It’s a great way to look after your aging parents who live across the country or help keep parents in sync with their child’s (or pet’s) medications!
Getting Motivated
The final component of the app is the Care4Charity piece, which gives people who take care of their own health the opportunity to make a positive difference in the world. App users can select a charity that will receive a $0.05 donation from Janssen Healthcare Innovation for each day through May 17, 2014 they indicate they have taken all of their medications on time.
The initial charities include AIDS United, American Diabetes Association and Save the Children. Janssen Healthcare Innovation has committed a minimum donation of $20,000 to each charity and a maximum additional donation of $90,000 to all of the charities combined for a maximum total donation of $150,000 as part of the Care4Charity™ program.
Taking care of yourself and your family can also help take care of the world! If you have a chance to download the app, we’d love to know what you think about it!
Janssen Healthcare Innovation (JHI), a team within Janssen Research & Development, LLC, one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, is dedicated to optimizing healthcare delivery and creating solutions that will modernize and transform the consumer healthcare experience.
Fadra Nally is a Communications Specialist for Johnson & Johnson. When she’s not working, she’s mothering a precocious 6 year old in the suburbs of Baltimore, MD. In her spare time, she writes all.things.fadra, one of the Top 100 Mom Blogs for 2012 according to Babble.com. She’s also the co-founder of Charitable Influence.