Offline medicine administration — every dose is saved, even without signal

At a patient's home, in a hospital, in a basement on the side of the building the signal does not reach. That is exactly when you need to give a medicine — and exactly when the signal can disappear.

Since version 1.7.0, mojApteczka saves dose confirmations instantly on the device — no waiting for the server, no spinning loading wheel. Pending administrations are added to a local queue and automatically synchronise with the cloud as soon as you are back online. Even closing the app or a flat phone battery will not lose a recorded dose.

How to give a medicine without an internet connection

The process is identical to giving a medicine online — lack of signal does not block any step:

1. open the medicine card in your home medicine cabinet,
2. tap the administration icon,
3. choose the dose (including fractional doses) and the recipient,
4. confirm — the screen responds instantly, and stock levels update locally,
5. when signal returns (or you open the app while online), the queue automatically sends pending administrations to the cloud.

You do not have to tap anything, resume anything, or "remember it for later". An operation leaves the pending list only when the server confirms receipt.

What happens to pending administrations

The key difference between mojApteczka 1.7.0 and a typical online-first app: the queue of pending operations is persistent. It is not a RAM variable that disappears on process kill — it is a disk-backed store inside the operating-system sandbox, encrypted at rest.

In practice:

• Closed the app during the visit? The queue lives on disk, waiting for the next launch.
• Phone battery ran flat in the car? Charge it, open mojApteczka — the queue resumes synchronising as soon as there is signal.
• Lost signal for 20 minutes after changing location? Quietly, in the background, the queue sends operations in batches without you doing anything.
• Using a shared home medicine cabinet? Your offline administrations become visible to other family members only after your device synchronises — but they appear without conflicts, even if someone else administered something in the meantime.

Why local-first, not "everything on the server"

The classic online-first model ships every operation to the server and waits for acknowledgement — it works great as long as the internet works. But when caring for a patient, the internet often does not work: old houses, basements, brick-walled hospitals, long drives between towns. Waiting for the server in that moment means one of two bad outcomes:

• a spinning loader — the caregiver has no idea if the dose was recorded,
• lost operations — after a timeout, the app gives up and the dose vanishes from history.

Neither is acceptable when medicines are involved. That is why mojApteczka saves the confirmation locally first — quickly, reliably, and regardless of the network — while cloud synchronisation runs in the background and completes when it can.

Surviving app kill and a dead battery

The mojApteczka Facebook post for the 1.7.0 release said: "no lost dose — closed the app? dead battery? pending dose records send themselves later". That is not a marketing promise; it is a consequence of the architecture:

• the queue is persisted to disk immediately on confirmation (write-ahead),
• restarting the operating system / rebooting the device does not affect the queue data,
• reopening the app reads and continues the queue,
• if background connectivity is available, synchronisation resumes without your intervention.

In other words: the only scenario in which a pending operation is lost is uninstalling the app before synchronisation. If you see an operation with "queued" status in history, simply open the app while online for a moment — the operation will reach the server.

Privacy — pending operations stay on the device

While an operation is in the queue, it does not leave your phone. That is a direct consequence of the local-first model — what you gave, to whom and when, is stored inside the operating-system sandbox, protected by biometric screen lock (Face ID / Touch ID). Only synchronisation moves the operation to the mojApteczka cloud in the EU (Frankfurt, AWS).

If you lose a phone without signal, even the last few minutes of administration records (still unsynchronised) remain encrypted inside the iOS sandbox. That is the same protection standard we apply to offline SmPC documentation and the pharmacy map.

Availability

Offline mode for medicine administration is currently available in the mojApteczka iOS app (from version 1.7.0). The Android version is planned — the same local-queue model will be implemented there in future releases. The web version naturally requires a server connection; if you need offline behaviour, use the mobile app.

How it connects with other features

Offline administration is one of the three pillars of "mojApteczka works without internet":

• Giving medicines — a complete description of the administration feature, including fractional doses, recipients, and history,
• Offline SmPC documentation — summary of product characteristics for 8,000+ medicines, available offline after the first synchronisation,
• Offline pharmacy map — pharmacy locator that works after the first bundle download,
• PDF report for the doctor — includes both synchronised and pending operations after synchronisation,
• Dosage reminders — run locally, independent of signal.

Important limitation

The pending-administration queue does not protect against uninstalling the app. If you have unsynchronised operations and need to change phones or reinstall mojApteczka, open the app with active connectivity before uninstalling — a brief moment online is enough for the queue to clear. After reinstalling, sign back in and your administration history (already in the cloud) will be available on the new device.

Note: the medicine administration feature is a tool for recording doses. It does not replace a doctor's or pharmacist's advice on dosage, frequency, or method of administration — offline just as much as online.

Offline medicine administration in mojApteczka turns the moment "with a patient, no signal" from a potential trap into something you do not have to think about. The screen responds instantly, the queue synchronises by itself, and no dose is lost — whether you are at home, in a hospital, or on the road.