Medrec:M app

The Medrec:M app has been designed to be a single point to record and track all your health information. Unfortunately, as it's not New Zealand-based, some sections do not work for New Zealanders (eg, appointment booking, appointment tracking, vaccination schedule).

Using this app, you can record a list of your health conditions and your medication plan. The app can notify you with reminders when your medications are due, and it can track your medicine inventory so you know when to get a refill/repeat prescription. You can track your own health, and you can add profiles for family members (eg, children) so you can track their health and medicines too.

You can also track health symptoms and data, and upload files/photos of your health documents (eg, clinic letters, hospital discharge paperwork, scan results etc).

For the complete app description, go to the app website(external link), Google Play(external link), App Store(external link) or, for a more detailed review, see reviews below.

Clinical review

Reviewer: Emma Riddell, Clinical Pharmacist, Health New Zealand
Date of review: November 2024
Platform: Android
Version: 8.4.6
Comments: Overall, I found this app to be quite good.
In comparison to some of the other medication tracking apps, I really liked that this app allows you to document a list of your health conditions, and you can link each medication to the health condition it's being used for. This can allow you to better understand the role of each medication in the management of your health.

I also liked that you could choose your usual schedule for when you take morning/noon/dinner/bedtime meds, and when you set up each medication you can choose if you want a different schedule on weekends than weekdays.
For some sections of the app you may need your GP or nurse to help you set up, for example making sure all the units in the app are set up correctly.

Like other medication tracking apps, this app was not designed specifically for Aotearoa New Zealand, and the database of medications is not exactly the same as the medicines we use in New Zealand. You may need to add your medication manually if you can’t find the right one when you search.

The “logbook” section allows you to track a range of measures, including height/weight, blood pressure, temperature, blood sugar etc. These results can be viewed as a list in the logbook, or as charts/graphs.
There is also a symptom tracker – I found this a bit confusing initially, but you can add symptoms from a list that's organised by type or can be searched. Once you choose a symptom, you can record the severity on a scale of 0 to 3. These symptoms are saved in the symptoms section, and you can scroll through each day to see how your symptoms change over time. I did find this section used some medical terms that may not make sense to all users.

The main downside I found with this app is that it hasn’t disabled the “clinicians”/“appointments” section. These sections are only relevant for Bulgarian users, and the doctors listed are all based in Bulgaria. Some sections in the “clinicians” tab are written in Bulgarian. This may be quite confusing for some users.
Safety concerns: Appointments tab and clinicians tab give option for users to request an appointment, however the clinicians on the app are based in Bulgaria, and some of this section of the app is in Bulgarian.
New Zealand relevance: Yes
Concerns: This app is not designed specifically for users in Aotearoa New Zealand. Some of the medications listed are not available in New Zealand, and some medicines commonly used in New Zealand are not in the app database – these can be added manually.
Some sections of the app are not relevant to New Zealand users – the “clinicians”, “appointments history” and “vaccines” tabs aren't able to be used. The clinicians tab has a list of clinicians and clinics, however they are not New Zealand-based.