A Printable Medication List, and How to Keep It From Going Stale
The list is easy to make. Keeping it true is the hard part.
By Mike Whobrey
It is National Family Caregivers Month, and Caregiver Action Network's theme this year is "Care Connects Us." CAN describes it as care connecting us "to our loved ones, to vital information, and to one another" (Caregiver Action Network). For a lot of caregivers, the most vital piece of information is the medication list.
Making one takes ten minutes. The trouble starts a few weeks later, when a dose changes and the paper on the fridge does not.
What to put on the list
Keep it to one page. Someone in a hurry should be able to read it standing up.
At the top:
- Full name and date of birth
- Last updated: the date you last checked the list
- Allergies (medications, foods, latex and so on)
- Primary doctor and pharmacy, with phone numbers
For each medication, one row:
| Medication | Dose | When | What it's for | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Use the "Notes" column for things like "as-needed only," "paused until follow-up," or "over the counter." Those details are easy to forget and matter to the person reading.
Include over-the-counter medicines, vitamins and supplements too. If you are not sure, ask the pharmacist.
Where to keep copies
- On the fridge. Many families already keep emergency info there.
- In a wallet or bag. Fold it or make a smaller version.
- With the stand-in caregiver. Whoever covers for you should have the same copy you do.
Every copy is another place that can go out of date. That is the trade-off.
Habits that keep it current
Update it the same day. When a doctor changes a dose or adds a prescription, change the list before you put the new bottle away.
Date every version. A date at the top tells anyone reading how fresh it is. It also tells you when it is time to check.
Pick a regular check. Put a reminder on your calendar to compare the list against the bottles. Once a month is a simple rhythm; pick what fits your household.
Bring it to appointments. Ask the doctor or pharmacist to look it over. That is a good chance to catch something you missed.
The patient-portal printout problem
In our house, the stack of printouts was its own problem. Every visit seemed to send us home with another patient-portal printout, like the medication summary from MyChart. After a while we had a pile, and it was hard to tell which one was the most current.
The portal list is not always the answer either. Several of our doctors have told us how much of a pain it is to remove a medication in MyChart, so even the portal's list can go out of date fast.
What fixed it for us was simple: one list that we own, updated the day anything changes. That one list is what goes on the fridge, and it is what feeds the emergency profile. The printouts are useful to check against, but they are not the list.
When the list changes too often
Some households have medications that change every few weeks. If that sounds like yours, paper alone gets hard to keep up with.
That is why I connected MyAllyFile and Domi Ops. If you track someone's medications in Domi Ops Cloud, you can link them to a MyAllyFile profile. From then on, that person's current medications are copied to the profile whenever they change in Domi Ops. Paused, as-needed and over-the-counter medications are marked as such. Synced medications appear in their own labelled section on the emergency profile, with the date they were last updated, and anything you typed into MyAllyFile by hand stays in its own list.
It only goes one way, from Domi Ops to MyAllyFile, and you can unlink at any time. You need a MyAllyFile Plus or Pro plan and Domi Ops Cloud; self-hosted Domi Ops is not supported. The full details are in Your Medication List Changes. Your Emergency Profile Should Too., and plan details are on the pricing page. You can learn more about Domi Ops at domi-ops.com.
You do not need any of that to start. A free MyAllyFile profile lets you type in medications yourself, and the QR code gives the fridge copy a backup that you update in one place.
A quick start
- Print the table above, or copy it into a document.
- Fill it in with the bottles in front of you.
- Write today's date at the top.
- Put one copy on the fridge and give one to your backup caregiver.
- Set a calendar reminder to check it again.
Get set up in ten minutes
Want to see what a responder sees before you build anything? Open the sample emergency profile. It uses fictional data, so you can click around freely. When you are ready, create a free profile. Any phone camera opens the QR code, with no app and no account for the person scanning.
Next in this series: what a caregiver should have ready when EMS arrives.
MyChart is a trademark of Epic Systems Corporation. MyAllyFile is not affiliated with Epic Systems.
MyAllyFile is a convenience for the people around you. It is not a substitute for calling 911 or getting emergency medical care, and it does not replace a medical ID bracelet. It is also not professional medical advice.