Making medicines easy to understand
Our videos
Our video series are about regular medicines, but they are different to what you might have seen before. We use simple drawings and a spoken ‘story’ to communicate WHY medicines are useful for certain conditions, HOW they work and WHAT benefits you should expect to get from them. But before we start talking about things like medicines prescribed after a heart attack, or how to treat high blood pressure, we first need to understand how the body works when its well, then what happens when things aren’t right and then how medicines can help.
Simple
Just the right amount of information to communicate what you need to know and why.
Visual
Animated pictures moving in time with the script to tell a visual story while highlighting key information.
Accessible
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Our story
Fiona has been talking about medicines since… well a long time ago. Throughout her career, spanning from community pharmacist to clinical specialist, she has learned that patients regularly find information about medicines complex and hard to remember.
Her solution was to start drawing pictures and writing short notes to help explain what had been discussed. It seemed to work – there were light bulb moments and looks of relief as people grasped what they hadn’t understood before.
What People Say
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What People Say →
“Talking About Medicines videos are concise easily understood summaries on how medications work within our bodies. Improving patients’ knowledge about their medication will lead to better adherence/compliance and improved outcomes for our patients.”
— GP
“A terrific teaching tool for visual learners. I like the dialog and diagrams that explain things so clearly audibly and visually.”
— GP Nurse
“The videos gave me exactly what I need to know about my medications. It was a quick and easy way to remember what I needed to do and why.”
— Patient
We’d love to get your feedback, please let us know what you think about our videos.
FAQs
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If you are taking medicines for something that has occurred suddenly and isn’t a long-term problem, like a headache or a sore knee due to an injury, then you may only need a single dose or a few doses for a few days until the problem settles down, and then you can stop taking the medicine.
Medicines need to be taken every day for long periods of time when you have a condition that needs to be kept under control like blood pressure, or you are trying to reduce the risk of something like a stroke.
Medicines only work while you are taking them and once you stop taking them, the beneficial effects wear off as soon as that medicine has been cleaned out of your body. This could happen within hours or might take days after stopping a medicine.
Watch this video to understand why taking your tablets regularly and at specific times is important.
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All medicines produce their effect for a specific time after you have taken them. You need to take the next dose before the last dose has completely worn off to get a continuous effect.
The length of time a medicine acts on your body is different for every medicine. Paracetamol needs to be taken every 4 hours to keep pain under control but some longer acting medicines work for about 24 hours so only need to be taken once a day.
The instructions on your medicine bottles tell you how often to take your medicines. Take twice a day means to spread your two doses evenly through the time you are awake, that is every twelve hours or as close to that as possible. Take three times a day usually means taking one dose in the morning (breakfast time), one dose in the middle of the day and one dose in the evening.
If the instructions say to take medicines at specific time intervals like every eight hours or every 6 hours, then you should try and stick to these times as closely as possible.
Watch this video to understand why taking your tablets regularly and at specific times is important.
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When medicines are being taken to prevent something like a heart attack or stroke, or to keep something like blood pressure or diabetes under control, they only work when you are taking them.
If you miss more than the occasional dose, you won’t get the full benefit of taking your medicine. In some cases, this loss of control could have serious consequences.
Watch this video to understand why taking your tablets regularly and at specific times is important.
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You should try to get a supply of your regular medicines to last you until you get home again.
Missing more than the odd dose of your regular medicines means the control you had while taking them regularly will be lost, which could have serious consequences.
There are a few ways you can get a supply of your medicines:
You can buy 3 days “Emergency supply” of your regularly prescribed medicines at any pharmacy in New Zealand
You will be charged the full price of the medicines, packaging and a dispensing fee, but usually a 3 day supply won’t be very expensive.
The pharmacy will need confirmation that these medicines have been prescribed for you.
Show the pharmacist a copy of your last prescription OR
Get in contact with your usual GP practice or pharmacy and ask them to send a copy of your last prescription to the pharmacy you want to buy the medicines from OR
Log in to a patient portal and show the pharmacist your usual medicines list
If you need more than 3 days’ supply, you can:
Contact your GP practice and ask them to send a new prescription to a pharmacy wherever you are.
Contact your usual pharmacy and ask them to dispense any repeats you have available and courier them to you.
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If you are not a New Zealand resident or citizen, you are not eligible for any funding for your prescribed medicines.
A New Zealand pharmacy cannot dispense medicines for you from a prescription written by a prescriber outside of New Zealand
To get a supply of medicines you will need to:
Make an appointment at a GP practice in New Zealand, take a copy of your usual prescription or a medicines list and request a New Zealand prescription to be generated.
In some cases, the medicine you have been prescribed in another country may not be available in New Zealand and the prescriber will need to choose an equivalent substitute from the list of medicines that are available.
In some cases, the prescriber may need further information from your prescriber in your country of origin and may want to contact that person before prescribing medicines for you.
Once you have the prescription, take it to any New Zealand pharmacy and they can dispense it for you. You need to expect to pay the full price of the medicine and packaging plus a dispensing fee.
Prefer a quick preview of what we’re talking about?
Check out our sample videos below.
