New medications unit on Carenity

Dear members,

I am happy to announce that Carenity now has a new unit – My medications, which is available to all members who can now add to their account, track and evaluate medications and treatments for their health conditions.

This new feature will allow you to learn more about your prescribed medications, as well as about unfamiliar treatments, to discover other patients’ experiences with these medications and compare your evaluations.

To access the medications page, place your cursor over “GIVE MY OPINION” and click on “My medications”.

Here is what you can do on this page:

Add a medication

To add a medication:

- Click the orange button “Add a medication”

- Type in the first three letters of the medications you’d like to add, then select the right one from the drop-down menu

- Type the first 3 letters of the condition for which you are/were taking this medication, then select it from the drop-down menu

- Click on “Date of first prescription” to enter the month and the year of the first time you were prescribed and/or started taking this medication. If you do not remember the month/year, you can just enter the approximate date, it does not have to be accurate.

- Click on “Date of last prescription” to enter the month and the year of the last time you took your medication or the date your prescription ends. If you are still taking this medication you can leave this field empty.

- Validate your medication

You will arrive on the medication fact sheet, where you will see the indications for this medicine, and the chart of the evaluations. Now, as the medications unit has just been created, there will be no evaluations, so don’t hesitate to be the first to assess your medication and let other members know what you think of its effectiveness.

You can also see the list of medical conditions for which the medication can be used, as well as the map of the members taking it (which will also be updated when everyone starts adding medications).

Once you’ve added your medications, you will see that you have two types of treatments: current and completed. This way you can compare and track your medications over time.

Evaluate a medication

To evaluate a medication you’ve added:

- click on the medication (either in the current or completed treatments)

- on the medication’s fact sheet, click on the pink button “Evaluate the medication”

- check the name of the condition and the dates of the first and last prescriptions (if applicable)

- evaluate all the items, such as treatment’s effectiveness, ease of use, impact of the side effects, etc.

- leave a comment describing your experience with the medication (it is not mandatory but will really help other patients who are taking or will take the same medication). Your comment will appear on the medication fact sheet in the comments section.

If you do not want to evaluate the medication through the special form, you can just leave a comment on the medication fact sheet. This way other patients will be able to reply to your comment. As on the forum, you will receive alerts for new comments on your medication fact sheet, and you can also tag other members using @ if you wish to address someone in particular.

Search for a medication

If you do not want to add a certain medication but you would like to learn more about it and read other members’ comments, you can search for this medication and access its fact sheet.

To search for a medication:

- Go back to “My medications” page

- Click on the pink button “Search for a medication”

- Type in the first 3 letters of the medication you search for, then select it from the drop-down menu

You will be redirected to the medication’s fact sheet, where you will find all the information about this medication, as well as other members’ evaluations and comments.

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We hope that you will find this new medications unit useful and will be visiting “My medications” page from time to time to share your own experience in order to help others, and to learn more about your current or future treatments.

If you have any questions or need help with this new section, please feel free to contact me, or our Ambassadors.