Aged residents with long-term medical conditions often take many prescribed medications. Managing these medications need an organized approach. eMAR is revolutionizing the medication administration process by streamlining the medication administration process and reducing medical errors.
Aged care homes and electronic medication administration record
Here are some of the benefits that aged care homes can get after implementing eMAR:
Benefit 1: Better compliance with documentation requirements
In all healthcare settings, including aged care homes, documentation should be done before moving on to the next person. However, when caregiving staff uses paper-based records, they administer medications to several residents before signing the charts. This is often done to save time but this leaves room for error. Using eMAR allows easy documentation as the hand-held device can be updated on a real-time basis.
Benefit 2: Freedom from duplication of paperwork
Too much paperwork can often lead to confusion. For instance, there are high chances that a caregiving staff member may sign a medication paper chart twice under two dates. This could happen due to many reasons – the common reason for this error is the staff being interrupted during the medication administration round. With eMAR, a caregiving staff can select the medication round time immediately after logging into the system and record the date and time of medication.
Benefit 3: Reduce the possibility of missed dosage or missed documentation
There are chances that caregiving staff may forget to medicate an elderly resident or to sign on medication charts. eMAR ensures that there is no missed dosage by sending alerts to caregiving staff. The eMAR system prompts the caregiving staff before the round starts, ensuring that medication is administered and proper documentation has been done. When using paper-based records, nurses have to rely on their memory and paperwork to ensure that medication has been administered or not.
Benefit 4: Better coordination between caregiving staff members
eMAR helps the caregiving staff to record the time of medication administration for a resident on a real-time basis. Often residents need to be administered the same medication twice a day. Caregiving staff needs to ensure a certain time gap between the two administrations. eMAR gives easy access to information regarding when the first dose was administered. This allows easy flow of information among caregiving staff working in different shifts. Also, in case of a missed dose, eMAR gives the option of choosing pre-defined reasons from a drop-down list or type in the reason. Paper-based MAR charts have limited space to write and any further information has to be documented on a paper note or the handover sheet. With eMAR, all the information is recorded in one place and authorized parties have easy access to it.
If you wish to know how eMAR can benefit your care home, book an online demonstration. We will also tell you how eMAR can be customized as per the specific needs of your care homes.
