How ATLAS eMAR simplifies the medication ordering process

Discover how ATLAS eMAR’s medication ordering process helps care homes safe time, reduce waste and improve safety for residents 

For any care home, one of the most important aspects of providing person-centred care is the effective management of medications to ensure that resident quality of life is prioritised. Effective medication management means controlling stock to ensure that a care home is never understocked or overstocked and that residents always have the medication they need to keep them free from pain and discomfort. In this article, we’ll be discussing how ATLAS eMAR simplifies the medication ordering process. 

Paper mar charts are inefficient for medication ordering 

For care homes that are still operating on a paper mar chart system, there can be issues with their medication ordering process because of the lack of oversight of what stocks are available and what is needed. For example, because of the time delay of using paper systems, some medications might have run out before there has been a chance to order them again, or an alteration to the medication, for example strength or dosage, might not be reflected in the new incoming stock because the information did not reach the pharmacy in time. 

Other instances might include a lack of oversight of medication administration leading to overstocking of medications because care homes, when ordering new stocks of medications, don’t account for stock levels that are left over from previous ordering.  

To avoid the issues that often blight care homes that use paper mar charts when it comes to medication ordering and stock control, investing in an electronic medication management system like ATLAS eMAR is essential. 

Medication ordering made simple with ATLAS eMAR 

ATLAS eMAR has been designed to simplify the medication ordering process and reduce the burden of administrative tasks and errors that are often associated with using a paper-based system.  

Below are some of the features of ATLAS eMAR that make medication ordering simple and more efficient: 

Countdowns for stock re-ordering 

The system automatically triggers a red notification on the hand-held device to notify care staff when it’s time for the monthly medication order and shows how many days of stock there are left when a member of staff is administering that medicine during a medication round, ensuring that staff are aware of upcoming medication orders that need to be handled. With this system, care staff will always see when stock is running low and will get continuous notifications with each day that passes informing that stock is running low. For example, the hand-held device will read “you have 9 days left of stock”, “you have 8 days left of stock”, and so on. 

Tracking medication usage data 

Because of the analytics available with ATLAS eMAR, usage of medications can be reviewed and tracked in a simple and time-efficient manner, rather than having to manually check each item of stock. This means that it’s much easier to keep track of average usage and enables care staff to identify which items are required or not required, which streamlines the process and eliminates the likelihood of wasted stock. This is especially useful and important when it comes to PRN medications, which are more susceptible to being either overstocked or understocked because they can be more difficult to quantify. 

ATLAS eMAR’s pharmacy integration 

Because of ATLAS’ integration with pharmacies, the system allows care homes to track the status of their orders, including items received, items not ordered, and the percentage of prescriptions that have been processed. It also means that care homes are less likely to receive outdated medication orders that do not reflect the changes in prescriptions or dosage. This level of oversight means that care staff have a far greater level of visibility when it comes to medications coming from the pharmacy and reduces the need to spend time going back and forth with pharmacies on the phone.