Episode 16 — Does mum take them regularly? The question nobody can answer at the GP

I was at the GP with my mum a week ago.

The doctor looked up from her screen and asked one simple thing.

Does mum take her medicines regularly?

And do you know what?

I went quiet.

Because I honestly didn't know what to say.

Hello, I'm Tomasz Szóster.

I built the Moja Pteczka app.

And what you've just heard is probably the most common question nobody can answer in the surgery.

Isa, what did you actually say?

I said, I think so.

I think.

That's all I had.

Mum lives on her own.

I'm round every few days.

She takes tablets morning and evening.

And hand on heart, I can't reconstruct a whole week from memory.

And no one can.

It's not that you're not trying.

That's exactly it.

Because it isn't one thing to remember.

It's mum in the morning, mum in the evening, then the children, then me and my own tablets.

The ones I forget most of all.

Four, five threads at once.

Each with its own rhythm.

And after a week, every one of those threads blurs into one big, I think.

I remember Leon had training yesterday.

I remember Basher lost her hat.

But did mum take her tablet on the Wednesday evening?

No idea.

So what now?

Do I stand over her with a notepad, ticking off every dose with a biro?

We tried it once.

The bit of paper went missing after three days.

The paper always goes missing.

That's why, in the Moyapotechka app, I made something that works differently.

Let me show you with an example.

There's a screen now called, simply, History.

You open it, and you see a calendar.

Each day has its own colour, depending on how many of that day's planned doses got ticked off.

So I look at the whole month and see straight away where the gaps were.

Exactly.

A day where everything's ticked looks different from a day with a gap.

And when you tap a particular day, a list opens up.

What time, which medicine, how many, and who it was for.

And what does a day with a gap look like?

Because mum sometimes takes the morning dose and misses the evening one.

Then that day is neither fully done nor empty.

You can see part of it's ticked and part isn't.

You go in and it's right there.

This dose in the morning?

Ticked.

This one in the evening?

Not.

No guessing.

And that, who it was for, that matters to me, because I'm not just keeping track of myself.

There's mum, there's the children.

And that's exactly why you can filter it.

By person, show me only mum's history.

Or by a single medicine, show me just that one, as far back as my history goes.

Right. But let's go back to the surgery.

Because it looks lovely on the phone.

Only the GP isn't going to scroll through my screen.

And that's the heart of it.

From that history screen, you can make a report for the doctor.

You pick the person, the medicine, the date range, and the app puts it together into a clear document.

You save it as a file, email it, or just show it there and then.

So, instead of, I think so, I put an actual sheet in front of the doctor.

Ticked on these days, not on those.

Yes. And that's the whole idea.

It isn't the app talking to the doctor.

You hand over the facts, and she reads them and interprets them.

And by the by, everything we're talking about here really is a feature of the Moya Potechka app.

This isn't an advert, just context, to be clear.

So, here's the question that really nags at me.

How do I know the report's true?

Because if I put a sheet in front of the doctor and it's gibberish,

or it's got the wrong person on it, that's worse than showing nothing.

Very good question, and that's the bit I put the most work into in this version.

Two things.

First, the name of the medicine.

It used to be that the history could sometimes show a technical code instead of the name.

Now the app keeps the real name of the medicine, even if that medicine left your cabinet ages ago.

So, I delete a medicine off the list, and the history still says, in plain English, what it was.

Yes.

Second thing, the person.

Picture this.

You've got a reminder set for mum.

Mum takes it for a month.

Then you delete the reminder, because you don't need it anymore.

It used to be that who it was for could disappear along with the reminder.

Not now.

Every dose keeps the right person, even after you delete the reminder.

That does sound honest, to be fair.

Because a record that drifts after a month is worth nothing.

Precisely.

The report you hand the doctor has to be right on the person and right on the medicine.

Otherwise, it's just a pretty picture.

So, where does this history come from in the first place?

Because for something to be ticked, I have to tick it.

You do.

And I'll say it straight.

The history is only as good as your ticking.

That's why I made it as simple as I could.

The reminder comes in, you tap it, and straight away, you've got the choice for that one dose.

Taken, snooze 15 minutes, or skip.

You don't even have to open the app properly.

And if I've no signal, mum's bedroom barely gets any reception.

It works with no signal.

You tick it off offline.

And when the signal comes back, that change syncs itself.

Same with adding and editing medicines.

You do it offline, and the app shows you how many changes are waiting to sync.

Right.

Now, the thing that always niggles me with features like this.

That colour calendar.

I don't want the app judging me.

As if I'm a bad daughter because there's a gap on the Tuesday.

And here I want to be very clear.

It's a record, not a judgement.

The app doesn't say good or bad.

It only shows what was ticked and when, that's all.

What you make of it, whether it matters, where you go from there,

that's a conversation with the doctor, not with your phone.

Alright, that does sound fair.

It's a fact, not a verdict.

Exactly.

And one more honest thing, because I don't want to hide anything.

For free, you see the last week of history.

If you want to go further back, that's on the paid plans.

Or, on the free plan, you can keep it for longer after watching an advert.

So you're not pretending it's all free with no small print?

I'm not.

I'd rather tell you plainly where the line is than have you find it in the surgery.

You know what I like most about all this?

That next time the GP asks, does mum take her medicines regularly,

I won't say, I think.

I'll say, here, this is the record.

And that was the whole point.

To take the job of remembering everything off your shoulders.

That's what tools are for.

Not the head of a tired daughter at ten o'clock at night.

Or a tired mum.

Because Basher will lose something again tomorrow.

If you'd like to give it a go, that's the Moya Pteczka app.

The app is free and works offline.

You'll find the link in the episode description.

And if you enjoyed the episode, share it with someone who's got a parent to take to the doctor next time.

One more thing before we go.

This podcast is made with the help of artificial intelligence.

I wrote the dialogue myself, but the voices you're hearing aren't ours.

They're AI-generated synthetic voices.

We're telling you this straight out because we think it should be the standard for any podcast made this way.

Full details are in the show notes and in every episode description.

Until next time.

Until next time.