11.20.2023 PCS
Streamlining and improving operations with eMAR software
About Bluebell Place
Home to 80 residents who may require residential and/or nursing care, as well as for those who are living with dementia, DMP Healthcare home Bluebell Place in Essex benefits from 7 large communal areas that are all decorated to a very high standard. All bedrooms have en-suite toilets with washing facilities, and around the care home there are spacious garden areas that are teeming with shrubs and flowers, all to be enjoyed from one of the many seating areas that can be easily accessed by residents all year round.
Bluebell Place, as well as having strong community links, is also known for providing an extensive range of activities for its residents. The care home is part of DMP Healthcare, which operates 9 care homes across the east and southeast of England. DMP Healthcare offers a variety of care options for both short and long-term residential and nursing care, and who’s core values of dignity, mindfulness and passion are the foundation of their daily culture.
Mihaela Munteanu, Home Manager for Bluebell Place, and Lucian Balog, Operations Manager for DMP Healthcare, describe how switching to ATLAS eMAR not only helped them save valuable hours through reduced paperwork, but also allowed them to improve operational efficiency and safety.
Mihaela Munteanu, Home Manager for Bluebell Place, and Lucian Balog, Operations Manager for DMP Healthcare, describe how switching to ATLAS eMAR not only helped them save valuable hours through reduced paperwork, but also allowed them to improve operational efficiency and safety.
Before implementing ATLAS’ eMAR software, Mihaela and Lucien, who have been in their positions for almost a year and four years respectively, identified on the ground level within the care home, as well as on a broader strategic and operational level for the group of care homes more broadly, that a paper-based MAR chart system came with inherent issues relating to efficiency and safety.
Though every staff member at every one of the homes always strives to deliver the best possible person-centred care for the residents with whom they have developed close bonds, working with paper-based MAR charts meant that no matter how much effort and time was put into the provision of care, they were always being held back, so the solution was simple: how could they harness technology to find the right balance between efficiency, safety and operational excellence.
Why DMP Healthcare chose ATLAS eMAR
“In the past, when it came to paper-based MAR chart systems, I think there was always going to be a stronger possibility of having medication errors, no matter how diligently we worked and how many hours we put into the job,” Lucian commented.
“At all of our care homes, every single one of our staff members strives to deliver the best possible care, but in reality, the hours are very long, the work is very demanding and without even considering the hard work that goes into providing care to the highest possible standard, the sheer amount of paperwork we would need to go through to do this meant that it was simply inevitable that human error would be an issue.
“Not only this but working with a paper-based MAR charts means that the level of oversight and communication you have is not as high as it could be; the same goes for the level of data you have to work with.”
These were the challenges that presented themselves to DMP Healthcare. Both Mihaela and Lucien knew that to overcome these challenges and get to the next level of care provision for their residents, they needed reduce the paperwork they had and increase the level of oversight and data for reporting to ensure that medication errors would be eliminated.
“Identifying these issues were the reason we decided to implement ATLAS’ eMAR software,” Lucian continued. “Because with ATLAS we had the opportunity to track medication management in real-time to ensure that every patient always had the right dosage at the right time. Other features of the eMAR were also invaluable to us, like Group Reporting and Central Dashboard, which gave me all the data I needed to maintain oversight of all care home operations.”
Saving time with ATLAS eMAR
“The fact that it was an all-in-one technology solution made a significant difference as well,” said Mihaela. “It helps us significantly in terms of providing residents with the medication they need in a timely manner. Because of features like Stock Control and Medication Ordering, it reduces the time needed to work through the process of re-ordering medications or communicating with the pharmacy to ensure there are no gaps in medication provision.
“The time saved has been incredible too. Because it’s all in one place, you have all the information you need not just to administer medication and make sure it’s the right medication because of the handy Barcode Technology feature, which means I can just scan the barcode and know that it is the right medication for the right person in an instant, but it also means that ambulance crews can reduce the time they might be at the home because the hospital packs pulls all of the pertinent information together and keeps it updated in real-time so that they can be printed and given to the ambulance crew. In this way alone, the difference in efficiency for us has been night and day.”
Impact and improvements
Of the many ways that ATLAS eMAR has made significant positive impacts on the way in which DMP Healthcare works, Mihaela was quick to point out the operational outcomes.
“The timeliness of the way it’s helped our operations stands out for me,” she commented. “It helped us save a lot of time that would have otherwise been spent chasing down information about prescriptions to try and ensure they’re up to date, or communicating with pharmacies to ensure that nothing is getting lost in translation. There are far fewer errors now because of the scanning process, and generally speaking because everything is right there at the click of a button, it’s made everything so much easier, but also so much safer and more manageable.”
Lucian agreed, adding: “It has saved us time most profoundly in ways that have become automated. For example, when we worked with paper MAR charts in the past, we had to go through all the steps of counting the medication, which still has to be done, but whereas before the process was quite slow and laborious and we had to write the balances at the bottom, but now that’s all automatic and it’s done in seconds. Add that up and it gives us back valuable time that can be spent doing other things, not to mention how much it has improved the safeguarding process, so both are a huge plus.”
Mihaela was also quick to praise the level of integration between ATLAS eMAR and Person Centred Software, saying: “With one click, I have everything I need as an account manager. Everything is in one place, and it has really freed us from some of the most time-consuming aspects of trying to provide person-centred care.
Would DHP Healthcare recommend ATLAS eMAR?
“Overall, I would definitely recommend the emar software because it minimises the time that it takes to manage medicines while improving best practice, as well as reducing the time it takes to evidence good medicines management.
“From the time that a resident is admitted, it’s only taken a couple of days for all of medicines information from the care plans to actually be implemented, and if one of the residents has to go into hospital, it again minimises the time and helps us to triangulate all of the risk assessments and the care plans together.
“It provides the perfect checklist of what we need: it’s streamlined our practices but also made them safer and more detailed, it’s allowed us to have greater synergy with pharmacies and it brings other aspects of care, such as reports and care notes, much closer together. These are just some of the reasons I will always recommend ATLAS eMAR and Person Centred Software.”
