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OnTracka: Free Health Tracking App For Cannabis Patients

In order to get the best outcome from your medical cannabis treatment you need to be consistent with your dosing and mindful of how those doses are affecting your physical and mental health. OnTracka is a free app that helps cannabis patients track their health outcomes. In this article you’ll learn about OnTracka and how you can access the app as an individual or in partnership with your doctor.

Cannabis tracking for patients

Today when Australians think of medical cannabis they think of a product that’s prescribed by a doctor. The reality is that a large majority of illicit cannabis consumers use cannabis for self-medication. Whether you are working with a doctor or self-medicating, the one constant for effective cannabis treatment is consistency. 

Once you’ve found the right product, you need to find the right dose. To find the right dose for your condition (lowest dose with least side effects), you need to start low and titrate up. Once you’ve found the right dose, you stick to that dose so that you get consistent results and relief of your symptoms. Particularly with THC, you can develop a tolerance and need more to get the same outcomes. In order to make sure you’re managing your cannabis medicine properly, you may want to track your cannabis consumption.

OnTracka is a free mobile app that helps individuals track their mental and physical health by giving patients an easy to use tool that records their activities, mental health and cannabis medicines. 

It’s a digital medical cannabis diary that tracks your health and wellbeing.

OnTracka was created by Chad Walkaden, a medical cannabis patient who has beaten cancer multiple times and wanted to help other patients who are dealing with similar health challenges that he’s dealt with.

In this article Chad answers the following questions about OnTracka:

What is OnTracka?

OnTracka is a free app that you can download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. It collects different inputs about your health and your medication. In particular, the app is focussing on the use of cannabinoid medication and can help you cross reference your medication with many other variables such as the other vitamins or supplements you take and your lifestyle. 

It also offers a range of validated measures and questionnaires that help capture real world evidence to help demonstrate the efficacy, safety and quality of cannabinoid medications.

So, while you’re tracking your health and well being and making sure you’re feeling great, you’re also helping provide evidence that may be able to prove cannabis medicine is effective and be more widely available.

Why was OnTracka created?

OnTracka was born as a result of some of founder, Chad Walkaden’s, struggles with his health, both physical and mental.

“OnTracka is a result of what occurred for me and these past six or seven years. I’m a qualified forensic social worker and worked in Australia and the UK in several levels of government for a long period of time. There were a lot of challenges I was working through with my mental health, different medical conditions, child safety issues and addictions. 

And then, at the age of 29, I was diagnosed with stage four cancer. As a result, I was in a unique situation. I was able to take my experiences of working with many people in different, complex and challenging circumstances, and then my situation, being faced with my own severe chronic mental medical health condition, and brought the two together to look at things differently.

I was using medical cannabis to combat the side effects of my daily chemotherapy. As a result of the changes to my quality of life and mental health, I was tracking things with a pen and paper. Those things included my mood, what sort of exercise I was doing and more. I was working out the things that would help me live optimally. 

As a result of my own experiences and seeing the challenges, and many times injustices that patients were experiencing when integrating cannabis into their healthcare, I really wanted to help and to make a difference. 

I think you’ll be able to see that everything we’re doing with OnTracka is patient-led. Our values, our product and how we’re operating is a real reflection of that. We’re true to patients. And we put patients first.”

App user review of OnTracka

How does OnTracka help cannabis patients & doctors?

OnTracka was created to help pull the whole physical and mental health experience together in one place so individuals can really analyse and understand how they are doing. 

“Maybe you’ve got some brain fog. Maybe you’re not, self-reporting the best. 

There’s a very crucial period that occurs. And, that is when there’s a loss of information between patient self-reporting and doctor. Doctors are often overworked. There’s between 7 and 15 minutes, maybe, where that information can be exchanged between doctor and patient in a consultation.

With OnTracka, in a very short amount of time, patients have a way to update information about their health regime, how they’re feeling and their medical regime. And, with the OnTracka Portal, that information gets sent, in real time, to a secure portal where your doctor can get an understanding of how their patient is doing via their inputs. 

Doctors are able to look at key measures for an individual such as their weight, steps, symptoms, mental health and more. And this is all done using validated questionnaires when looking at the patient’s symptoms. 

Doctors get more accurate and timely information and patients get more tailored care and treatment from their doctors. We know that the current patient-doctor interaction isn’t the best. By digitising and transforming the traditional relationship between doctor and patient, we can improve patient outcomes.”

Who can use the app and how can they get it?

Anyone can use the OnTracka app, however, Chad is focussed on helping improve the health and reporting for medical cannabis patients. 

There are three ways in which OnTracka can be used by patients:

  • Patient only
  • Patient and medical cannabis clinic partners
  • Patient and Independent GPs

Patient only

The OnTracka app is free for all patients. You can download the app at the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. If you decide to take this route, you’ll have access to all of the tracking features, however, you won’t be connected to your doctor via the application. 

It’s still a great tool to help you track your mental and physical health. It can support you in being better prepared for your appointments, and still can be integrated with your doctor down the line.

Clinics

In the next couple of months there will be several cannabis clinics across Australia, that are going to launch their OnTracka integrated technology. So, if you’re a patient of those clinics you’ll automatically be able to use OnTracka to help your doctor manage your medical cannabis regime. 

Not only will you be able to interact with your doctor directly inside of the app via a chat-like feature, your doctor will also be able to review your progress using five key validated measures.

For a list of clinics currently integrated with OnTracka, see the clinics section below.

Independent GPs (with patients)

Whether you’ve tried OnTracka solo and want to integrate with your GP or you’re new to cannabis and you’d like to start using OnTracka with your clinician, the process is simple. 

The best way to get your doctor onto OnTracka is to ask them to send an email to

Someone from the OnTracka team will be in touch within 24 hours to help get you set up.

Clinics integrated with OnTracka

Patients can use OnTracka via their clinic. Below is a list of the clinics that already integrate with OnTracka. If you are prescribed by a clinic and want to start using OnTracka it’s important that you download you clinic’s specific app. Downloading the OnTracka app directly will not integrate with your clinic. 

Here’s a list of Australian cannabis clinics and doctors integrated with OnTracka:

Conclusion

Whether you’re going to use OnTracka with your doctor or as an individual to monitor your own health, the app is a great medical cannabis diary and makes it easier to track your medications and their effects more accurately.  

Many medical cannabis patients are still getting their product via illegal avenues for various reasons. The beauty of OnTracka is that it can begin to help you use your cannabis in a more regimented way without too much effort.

For those pursuing the legal route for the first time, this app may be a great way for you to start monitoring your doses and creating a routine that will help increase the efficacy of your medical regime. For patients who continue to medicate via illicit means, this could be a great way to monitor your cannabis consumption more meticulously.

For individuals who are working with their doctor via the app, OnTracka will not only help you track your medication and outcomes, it also makes the limited time you get with your doctor more intentional and outcomes-driven.

Information

chad walkaden founder ontracka
Chad Walkaden

Chad is a Mental Health Expert, a Stage IV Cancer Survivor and Founder of OnTracka, an Australian start-up that has created technology to help accelerate the legitimacy of cannabinoid medicines into the healthcare system.

tom brown author headshot
Tom Brown

Tom is a co-founder of honahlee, startup junkie, a cannabis enthusiast and a digital marketer. His interest in cannabis began as a teenager growing up in New York. Tom loves to trawl through cannabis research, documenting cannabis truths and myths. He started honahlee to help reduce the stigma around cannabis in Australia by educating people about the many uses of the plant.

Disclaimer

The team at honahlee are not doctors and are not providing medical advice. Neither Chad Walkaden nor the honahlee team are recommending the use of marijuana (cannabis) for medical or adult use purposes. Cannabis does not work for everyone and may have negative side effects. In Australia, medical marijuana (cannabis) is regulated by the TGA. If you think cannabis is right for you, please consult with your doctor or specialist.