Help for The RecordsKeeper Medication Regimen Screen
This screen permits you to record and maintain a history of your medication and vitamin regimen.
Its purpose is to provide a recorded history of drugs, medications, vitamins and supplements that you have taken, currently take, or plan to take. This history can be used when visiting with or discussing health issues with your physician, pharmacist or insurance company and may prove valuable while traveling away from home should an incident requiring medical attention occur. While this is the primary purpose, the screen can in fact be used to maintain data about anything else if you wish, simply by changing the field data names to suit your purposes.
Data Fields: There are 9 data fields available to you.
1: The first field can be used to categorize the regimen record. You might normally use this field to indicate whether the drug or supplement has been prescribed or not. This field is limited to 36 characters of information and is used as a section header in the standard Medication Regimen report, thus brief phrases such as ‘Prescriptive’, ‘Non-Prescriptive’, ‘Experimental’ are most appropriately used in this field.
2: The second field can be used to record the generic or technical name of the drug or supplement, and related information. You are limited to 72 characters in this field.
3: If important, you can record the name of the manufacturer, supplier or your pharmacist in the second data field. This field is limited to 50 characters.
4: The fourth field can contain the dosage amount whenever the drug or supplement is taken. You are limited to 50 characters in this field.
5: Next, you may select or record the frequency on which you take or ingest the medication. You are limited to 50 characters in this field.
All of the above fields are drop-lists so you can either choose an existing entry, or key in a new one.
6 and 7: The first date field is normally used to record the date on which the medication was first taken and the second, the date on which you stopped taking the medication. If a dosage changes while you are taking the same medication, you can enter a termination date when you change dosage, and then open a new record with the same information and change it to reflect the new dosage.
A date calendar is presented when you double-click in the date fields. Select the date you want by clicking on the day. The calendar will close and the date you selected will be entered for you. The ‘<<’ and ‘>>’ buttons on the calendar screen move the year forward and backward, while the ‘<’ and ‘>’ buttons move the month forward and backward.
8: The Description field can be used to contain any other relevant information. This may include the prescribing physician, the volume of medication on hand, references to literature about the medication, such as side-effects, or any other relevant information. There is no limit to the amount of information you can store in this field.
9: This data field is a hyperlink field that can be used to access a web-site relative to the medication, or to a document image for instructions, regarding side-effects, or whatever. You can paste the link or right-click the field to access a hyperlink dialog box.
10: The last data field is an attachment field that can be used to store images, photos, scanned documents or other objects that can be opened and viewed by a program on your computer. You may store as many objects as you require.
There is also a check box that you can set ‘On’ if for some reason you do not want a record to print on any report. It is used solely to control whether a record is included on a report or not, so it can be used even temporarily to cause a record not to appear in a report. It is not re-set automatically however. It will have to be reset should you want the record to appear on a subsequent report.
Note that the default names assigned to the above fields are just that: you can change the names of these fields to whatever names you want by using the Captions Control features accessed from 'personal' page of the main screen. Thus this screen can be used for other purposes if you wish.
Sorting, Searching and Filtering Records
You can sort the records so that they are presented in a desired sequence, search the records to find records that contain specific phrases, and/or filter the records so that only specific records are available.
Sorting: To sort the records, place your cursor in the field that you want to sort on, then right-click and choose the ascending or descending option from the context menu. You can sort on several fields repeating this action several times starting with the least significant field in your desired sort order.
Once a sort order has been established, it will remain in effect until it has changed. If you are unsure of the current sequence and if you wish to reset the sequence for any reason, click the 'Reset Sequence' button located near the top right of the screen. Clicking this button will alternately sequence the records from the first record entered into the database to the last record entered, or from the last to the first, depending on how they were last sorted using this reset feature.
When you open this screen the records will be in the same sequence as when the screen was last closed.
Searching: There are two ways to search for records that contain a specific phrase.
1: The first is to use the search box found at the bottom of the screen. When you enter a phrase in this box, your cursor will move to the first instance of the phrase that is found in any of your data fields. You can continue searching for the same phrase in other fields within the same record or in other records by pressing the 'Enter' key. Each time you press the 'Enter' key, the next instance of the phrase that is found is highlighted for you.
2: The second is to place your cursor in the field you want to search, then right-click and select 'Search (Find)'. If you selected text before right-clicking, the selected phrase will appear in the search box. If you did not select any text, the search box will be empty and you can enter any phrase you wish. You can also replace the text in the search box with any phrase you wish to search for.
The 'Find and Replace' window which opens will permit you to decide whether to search within the field you selected or all data fields; to specify whether you want to search any part of a field, the whole field or the start of the field; to specify whether you want to search all records or just those following or preceding the record you are in; and finally whether you want to specifically match on case (capital letters, etc.). Clicking the 'Find Next' button will initiate and continue the search.
Filtering: To filter the records so that only a subset of the records are available, place your cursor in the field you want to filter and select the phrase (the characters) you would like to filter on. Right click and select 'Filter By' or 'Filter Excluding'. The former will display all records that contain the selected phrase in the field you used to filter on. The latter will display all records that do not contain the selected phrase in the field you filtered.
When a filter has been applied, the term 'Filtered' will appear at the bottom of the screen to indicate that only a subset of your records are available. To reset the filter and display all of your records, right-click in the same field and select 'Filter (Reset all Records)', click on the 'Filtered' message at the bottom of the screen, or click the 'Reset Filter' button located near the top left of the screen.
Once you filter your data, the filter remains in place until you reset the filter.
When you open this screen for the first time during a session, all records are displayed. If you filter the records during your session and the filter is on when you close the screen, you will be given the opportunity to apply the same filter or to display all records when you open this screen again while in the same session (i.e. you have not closed and re-opened the application).
Note that filters can be nested. That is, you can filter the records, then filter the filtered records again any number of times to arrive at the precise set of records you wish to display.
Note also that if a displayed record does not contain the phrase you wish to filter on, you will have to perform a search operation first so that the record with the phrase you wish to filter on is displayed, permitting you to select the filter phrase.
In summary, remember that searching is not the same process as sorting or filtering. Searching is the process of locating one or more records that contain the search phrase. For example, you can highlight and find all the records containing the phrase 'disease'. Sorting is the process of organizing a set of records in a particular order. For example, you can sort a set of records in alphabetical order, by date or by quantity, and so on. Filtering is the process of displaying records that meet a given condition. For example, you can filter your conditions records to only include immunizations.
A status bar at the bottom of the screen indicates how many records are currently on display. When the records have been filtered, that box will show the number of filtered records available and the box next to it will say 'Filtered', or 'Unfiltered' as the case may be. A search box also permits you to search the currently available records for a phrase that you enter in this box.
Data Editing: Each record has a status box on its very left. When a record is empty and available for new data, that box contains an asterisk. When a record is being edited (changed) the box contains and right pointing arrow. When the box is black, it indicates that an entire record has been selected.
Editing: You change the contents of a data field as you do with any other computer program. You can double-click in most fields to open an edit box. This box shows multiple lines and the number of characters that are available to you for the field. Note that the two right-most data fields can be edited for style as well as for content.
Replacing: You may replace one, some or all instances of a specific phrase by using the 'Replace' function.
To replace a phrase, select it with your cursor, or place your cursor in the field that contains the data to be replaced, then right-click and select 'Search (Find)'. If you selected text before right-clicking, the selected phrase will appear in the search box. If you did not select any text, the search box will be empty and you can enter any phrase you wish. You can also replace the text in the search box with any phrase you wish to search for.
Click on the 'Replace' tab when the 'Find and Replace' window opens. A new box named 'Replace With:' is now available. Enter the phrase you wish to replace the 'Search (Find)' text with in the 'Find What:' box.
You then decide 1: whether you want to replace that value only when found in the same field or in any field by setting the 'Look In:' field; 2: whether you are replacing the whole field, any part of the field of just the start of the field; 3: the direction you want to move; and 4: whether you want to match on case.
When all settings are established and you are ready to continue, click either the 'Replace' or the 'Replace All' button. When you click the 'Replace' button, the current instance of the phrase will be replaced with the new phrase and the cursor will move to the next instance of the phrase that it finds. At this point you have the option to replace that instance or to proceed to the next instance. If you do not want to replace the found instance, click the 'Find Next' button to proceed to the next instance.
If you are certain that you want to change all instances in the currently selected set of records, you can click the 'Replace All' button. Clicking this button will change every instance of the phrase in the records that are currently available. All records are currently available if the records have not been filtered. If the records have been filtered, replacements will only occur within the filtered set of records.
You must exercise caution when using this feature as the only way the changes are recoverable is to reverse the procedure. It is sometimes preferable to filter your records to a specific subset of records that you wish the replacements to apply to so that you do not inadvertently make replacements in error.
Deleting: You delete a record by selecting (clicking) its 'Select' switch (found on the right side of the screen) and setting it to on, then clicking the 'Delete Selected' button. You can delete as many records as you wish by selecting more than one record for deletion. Note that once deleted, records cannot be retrieved..
Copying and Pasting: You copy and paste a record by selecting (clicking) its 'Select' switch (found on the right side of the screen) and setting it to on, then clicking the 'Copy Selected' button. You can copy as many records as you wish by selecting more than one record. Note that when you copy records, any data in the attachment field will not be copied. If you require the attachment data in the copied record, it will have to be re-entered manually.
Upon clicking the 'Copy' button, a sceen will open that permits you to copy the selected record(s) to the screen you are on, or to another user.
You can copy and paste data within specific fields from one record to another. Select the data you want to copy by highlighting it with your cursor, right-click and select 'Copy' from the context menu (or use the Ctl + C keys), then place your cursor in the place in the record and field you want to copy to, then right-click and select 'Paste' from the context menu (or use the Ctl + V keys) to place the copied data in the second field.
Tips and Hint(s):
If you would like to see how this data can be used, change to the ‘Sample’ user and view that data.
There is only one hyperlink available to you, but should you require additional linkages to other drug or disease related web-sites, you can always store their addresses in a description data field and then copy and paste the address into your web browser when you want to visit the site.
Use the attachment field to store scanned images of medication information provided by your pharmacist. Prescription medications are often accompanied by information sheets that can be scanned and stored as references using this field.
You can delete a record by selecting it (clicking the box on the far left) and pressing the delete key or right-clicking and using the 'Cut' action option.
Note also that you are free to rename the fields used on this screen and to use the fields for whatever purpose suits your need. You do not have to follow the recommendations made above.
Screens - Medication Regimen
