I’m very new to the automation world and just now scratching the surface with NFC tags. Therefore I’m asking that you explain everything to me like I’m three years old. I have an iPhone.
I have a 3year old son that’s on a lot of medications (laxatives, growth hormone and more). Anywhere between 3-5 different medications a day all at different times. Some are scheduled, some are as needed. It can be upwards of 8 doses a day between all of those medications depending on his needs.
His pediatrician likes to have a detailed record of what he took. Since he’s been born, medication logging is something I’ve struggled with keeping documentation of because there’s so many.
I want to make a chart inside my medicine cabinet door that has an nfc tag Beside each medication name so that I can tap it and it automatically is logged. That way if his dad gives him the medication it’s also logged.
How do I do this? I need to get my sanity back and I’ve yet to find a simple way of tracking.
Bonus points if there’s a way to make a similar chart of nfc on a paper to track his bowel movements as the doctor also needs that documentation.
I’d be inclined to use a previously loved iPhone and set up an account for your son so you can have a dedicated Health app for him. You can then share the data withg appropriate people. It has reminders for medications and allows you to enter all of the details for medication management (frequency, dose, a visual on what it looks like, logging, etc.).
One thing I would love is if they would add a way to require you to take a picture. That could be handled through an automation, most likely. Whenever you get a notification for medication, have it request a picture then you can get all of the meds and snap a photo to go along with the log. Now you know which medications were grabbed and you don’t have to worry about “did I get that one, or not?”
I also wish Apple would get over themselves with respect to these preconceived notions of apps only belonging on specific devices. I want the Healthy on my Macbook, as well. I would much rather be able to manage my medication list from here where I have easy access to a browser side-by-side with the app and use my keyboard and mouse. The iPhone is a great point of use system and data collection device, but some of the more detailed “data entry” stuff is rather tedious.
A fairly simple version would be to have a Shortcut automation writing to a shared Numbers spreadsheet. Each medication would have an NFC attached to it, which would trigger the Shortcut automation.
Unfortunately, this forum will not let me upload a Numbers spreadsheet, so I have attached a screen grab of how I set it up.
Next, set up the Shortcut that you want to run for the specific medication. (See below for a sample Shortcut for taking paracetamol). If you install a copy of the Shortcut that I have linked below, it will ask you where the Spreadsheet is to use for the journal.
To set up the automation, open the Shortcuts app and tap on the Automation tab at the bottom of the screen. On the Automation tab, click on the ‘+’ at the top of the screen and select NFC. Tap Scan and scan the tag on one of the medications. You will then be asked for the name to assign to the NFC Tag (for simplicity, name the tag with the name of the medication that you are logging). On the next screen, select to run the automation immediately without a notification and then select the Shortcut that will log the medication.
A sample of setting up the automation that is called when a specific NFC tag is tapped:
The individual automation is repeated for each medication/nfc tag, just changing the name of the medication to be logged. The same “main” Shortcut is called each time.
Hello! This is very helpful and I’m trying so hard to make this work. This is my first time using NFC tags. I tag meds that affect my memory and I also take pain meds as needed but then also tend forget if i took said pain meds SECONDS after i took them! its very dangerous to retake these pain meds. I’ve downloaded your provided shortcut and and created the spreadsheet in the numbers app. But everytime I scan the NFC tag it says it cant find the spread sheet even though it opens the spreadsheet window. i can’t seem to find my error. I will attach some screen shots. I would really appreciate some help. Thanks so much!!!
Hi @Danielle_Thomas. Looking at the image you have attached for the spreadsheet, it looks like you have the name of the sheet within the spreadsheet as Medication status (lowercase ‘s’ at the start of ‘status’ whereas the shortcut is looking for Medication Status with a capital ‘S’. Try updating the sheet name and hopefully that will sort it for you.
Thanks so much I’m gettng there! I’ve gotten this far. I’ve got it listing the date and time and was even able to change it to list the dose but I’m trying the have it list the medication name but it just lists the dose twice. I’d like to be able to add other pain killers to the same chart.
