How to handle storage and recall of frequency data

English
#1

I’m working on a prescription medicine database and I need some ideas.

When a prescription is written as “Take 1 tablet three times a day”, how would yall suggest to handle storing that in fields? Right now, I’m thinking of breaking that up so that my fields would be 1, tablet, three, and day. I also have fields assigned for med name, strength, form (like tablet, capsule), strength, and others. The biggest trouble I’m having is trying to figure out a way to transform the “day” field into something numeric so that it can be used for calculations. I’m thinking of using 1=day, 7=week, 14=biweekly, and 0=as needed, Is there a way to make a field display something like daily instead of how it will store that data which would be 1?

#2

Hello,

A list box will allow you to display one value yet store another. This is very common. See > Combo Box/List Box Wizard
.
However there may be more to your task than presented. First that comes to mind is your “Take 1 tablet three times a day”. Possibly missing is every eight hours? And it is likely much more is going to arise.

#3

I myself am not a pharmacist or doctor.
But I have cared for someone who had to take many different pills.

What you describe is basically a matrix.

I would like to comment on this:

Besides taking it for morning, noon and evening, you should also consider night.
Also, it may happen that more than one tablet of a medicine needs to be taken at a time.
This is the case if an urgently needed medication is only available in the pharmacy with half the active ingredient, then you must take 2 tablets of that medication at a time.

I am an advocate for database application.
But this application I would personally create in Calc (as far as I understood your explanations), because it is very computationally intensive.

IMHO you need a field for each time point per Medicine by which you can enter a quantity (1 or 2 or more).
The contents of these fields should be numeric from the start to be able to calculate them.
You will need a separate field for the time ranges (e.g. number of days) you specify.
I assume that you want to determine the total stock of medicines for a time range to be defined.

I hope my explanations help you with your further considerations.

A simple table in Calc could look like this:

HB_01 Medicine 74748.ods (18,1 KB)

In case the medication changes in between, copy the table to get a new calculation.

#4

In spreadsheets you may find a day=24 hours stored as 1. Fractions of a day like 12 hours or 6 hours then as 0.5 or 0.25
So 1 as day may be a useful decision.

List/Combo-Boxen were already named and there are formatted fields to show units like day(s) after a number.

One question is the goal of your calculations, as you may also face prescriptions like 1 tablespoon or half pills. So you may need some way to convert to a basic unit for volumes and there us somtimes the same medicin available as tablet or liquid.

#5

Well, when you read the directions on a prescription (also just called the sig) as written, it is usually done like 1tab tid for example. It is more or less up to the pharmacist if they want to put every 8 hours or 3 times a day.

#6

And thank you for pointing me at the list / combo box. I’ve done tables in SQL before but this is almost my foray into Base.

#7

Right. Well, I was a paramedic for 15 years so I’m very comfortable with medicines. I’d be screwed if I wasn’t considering I am on about 16 of them now. Ugh. Anyways, this database is going to solely be a personal project for me. I went with Base because I have done databases in SQL before and wanted not only the intertwining of data sets but also the isolation between them.

I’m just now working on the medication table which will use the NDC code as it’s primary key since that number is unique to each strength and form of the meds. I’m also planning on tables for refills, dosages, and what will be basically a personal log to reference that I did indeed take xyz at abc time.

If you couldn’t already tell :joy: a few of my meds are for ADD so in my mind this is a relaxing undertaking. But yes, the dosages table will have the start and end dates of any changes, obviously the frequency and amount per dose, etc. One end goal of all of this is to be able to quickly see when I will need to refill my meds. Where I had 2 suicidal episodes 3 years ago, I keep my heaviest meds locked in a cash box that I don’t know the combo to and my wife only opens it once a week when I need to refill my organizer. I’m hoping that by doing this the automated way, I won’t run into the surprise that I only have 1 pill of xyz left in the bottle and have to scramble a refill so I don’t miss a dose.

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