Like every industry, long term care is going through a period of digital transformation. A part of this change is the adoption of EHRs (Electronic Health Record) and eMAR software. Therefore, one might wonder, “what is eMAR?”
The adoption of electronic data, including eMAR, is gradually expanding as more facilities recognize the advantages of integrating it and EHR into their care plan software. Nursing home software, now equipped with the eMAR system, is fast becoming a necessary tool for monitoring daily activities, keeping accurate resident records, and further enhancing medication management.
In recent times, innovative eMAR software has proven to be a particularly useful feature in long term care software, allowing facilities to deliver and administer medication better. But, what is eMAR and how does it benefit the residents and facilities?
To answer the question, what does eMAR stand for, eMAR stands for Electronic Medication Administration Record. It is an integrated, electronic system that supplants the laborious MAR (Medication Administration Records) charts.
When it is fully merged with the facility’s EMM (Electronic Medication Management) technology, the eMAR software safeguards the process for medication management to encompass everything from prescription to administration, to monitoring, and auditing. This provides facilities with a seamless and efficient flow of information.
Before we dive into the specifics of eMAR, it’s crucial to have a solid understanding of the broader concept of Electronic Health Records in which eMAR plays a key role. An EHR is essentially a digital version of a resident’s traditional paper chart. It contains a patient’s complete health history, including diagnoses, treatments, medications, allergies, radiology images, and laboratory test results, all recorded in real time.
One of the primary goals of EHRs is to ensure information is complete, accurate, and up to date. Nursing home staff can use EHRs to make informed decisions about a resident’s care. For example, EHRs can flag potential issues, such as allergies, before a new treatment plan is prescribed.
EHRs offer significant benefits to both long-term care providers and residents. For providers, EHRs:
- Enhance the efficiency of care delivery by eliminating the need for paper records
- Reduce errors
- Improve communication among healthcare teams
- Provide quick access to patient records
- Allow for better coordination of care between different healthcare providers, reducing the risk of duplicate tests and conflicting prescriptions
From a resident’s perspective, EHRs:
- Ensure health information is centralized and accessible
- Make it easier to manage appointments, view lab results, refill prescriptions, and communicate with healthcare providers
- Enable residents to be more informed and involved in their healthcare decisions, often leading to better health outcomes
What Is eMAR in Healthcare?
The medication process in healthcare is often complicated and laborious. To understand what is eMAR in healthcare, one must look at how eMAR is integrated to fully appreciate the benefits of eMAR in nursing computer software.
So what is eMAR’s main objective? It aims to distribute medication and treatments safely, efficiently, and cost-effectively. The technology documents all medication processes, allowing facilities to track medication-related issues in their long term care software.
One of the most significant advantages of eMAR is flexibility; resident records are stored on a centralized, electronic system, allowing for easier access among authorized staff. Residents in facilities tend to have multiple medical conditions and therefore require a lot of medication. It is essential that all medical staff can access resident records so they can tailor care to individual residents’ needs.
Efficient EHR software incorporates a built-in eMAR feature that allows facilities to access real-time charting information. Facility staff can track ePrescribing, clinical decision support, and physician orders. Going paperless also creates an archive of all medical-related issues with better accuracy in charting medications and treatments while making resident medical records instantly available. Because of this, eMAR is fast growing in popularity due to its improved efficiency and reduced medical errors.
Other additional benefits of eMAR software include:
- Streamlined medication administration: eMAR digitizes this once manual and often complicated process, which boosts efficiency. This digital streamlining means that medication dispensing becomes quicker and more accurate, ultimately improving resident care.
- Ease of implementation and usage: Due to its intuitive and user-friendly interface, Experience Care’s eMAR can be implemented conveniently in various types of long-term care facilities. The simplicity of use reduces the learning curve, allowing care professionals to adopt it readily.
- Reduced risk of medication errors: One of the most critical benefits of eMAR is its potential to significantly reduce medication errors and prevent drug interactions, which can adversely impact both resident health and the credibility of a nursing home. By automating medication records, the risks associated with manual record keeping, such as incorrect dosages or missed medications, are greatly diminished.
- Remote accessibility: Some of these long-term care software are compatible with Android smartphones and tablets, offering care home managers and staff easy remote access to cloud-based MAR sheets. This ability to access medication records from anywhere enhances flexibility and responsiveness in resident care.
- Efficient time management: With eMAR, medication documentation processes are faster, due to the digitization of records. Time saved on administrative tasks can then be allocated to resident care, contributing to a higher quality of service and improved resident outcomes.
- Quality work experience for care workers: Finally, eMAR enables nurses to streamline medication administration and reduce the risk of medication errors, resulting in time savings. Consequently, this leads to a more satisfying work experience for nurses, and promotes a more productive work environment.
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What Is eMAR Nursing?
While eMAR technology can improve a facility’s efficiency by streamlining medication, the vital question to ask is, what is eMAR nursing, and how does eMAR impact the daily activities of nursing?
One of the most inconvenient tasks nurses must do before administering medication is sifting through MAR charts. There is often a mountain of illegible notes to decipher or missing information, which is frustrating, time-consuming, and can easily lead to medical errors with fatal consequences.
Effective eMAR software, meanwhile, eliminates paper-based charts, therefore, improving access to legible resident data. Another advantage of eMAR is the improved working experience for nurses and facility staff.
Working in a long term care facility is particularly stressful, often leading to staff burnout. To make matters worse, the current staffing crisis is exacerbating the problem as the current nurse to resident ratio is very high.
Nurses are often overloaded with residents. That is why incorporating eMAR that makes resident records more structured, better organized, and easily accessible means they can perform their daily duties more quickly and efficiently, therefore decreasing stress and improving job satisfaction.
Still, critics of eMAR find themselves asking: what is eMAR, what are the benefits of eMAR, and what is eMAR in healthcare? Does eMAR really improve efficiency and workflow? In response, it must be said that eMAR has the potential to improve real-time charting, note sharing, and organizing care plans.
However, the software needs to be fully integrated when sufficient eMAR medication training, so facility staff can make the most of the nursing home EMR software. Having more transparency and effortless access to data helps facilities to improve workflow, resulting in lower staff turnover.
What Is eMAR and Is It Worth the Investment?
Immediately following the question “what is eMAR?” comes the question “is it worth the investment?” The short answer to the latter is yes. Critics of eMAR may argue that it is an unnecessary expense. However, those with a great deal of experience in long term care know that they must be able to efficiently coordinate the smooth running of multiple services, from medication administration to assisting with ADLs (Activities of Daily Living) to organizing social activities and cooking delicious meals.
Only through an effective nursing home charting software can facilities maximize efficiency and achieve better outcomes for residents. While eMAR technology can be expensive, the advantages far outweigh the negatives.
Experience Care’s eMAR software eliminates paperwork and redundant processes, thus reducing errors, instances of non-compliance, and time spent. Along with its pre-configured workflows and tailored care plans, the software is worth the investment, saving facilities time, money, and stress.
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