It’s time to ditch paper MAR charts – Kismet Care Homes’ perspective on the benefits of eMAR and making the switch

Taking the next step in your digital journey and enjoying the many benefits of ATLAS eMAR 

About Kismet and Ventura Care Homes 

Both Kismet and Ventura Care Homes, located in Western Super Mare, have been pillars of specialised mental health care for over a decade. These establishments are dedicated to providing exceptional support for individuals living with mental health conditions.

Natalie, a seasoned professional with 15 years of experience in the industry, recently joined Kismet in January 2024. Her extensive background and unwavering commitment to excellence are valuable additions to Kismet's dedicated team, further enhancing the quality of care they provide. 

Natalie Cole, Registered Manager for Ventura and Kismet Care Homes, discusses the switch from paper-based MAR charts to ATLAS eMAR, and the incredible time, safety and efficiency savings that followed. 

Before we introduced ATLAS eMAR to Ventura and Kismet, we were using a paper-based system for our medications, and it would be an understatement to say that it was flawed. In fact, I hated using paper! When we were using paper, we found that there was far too much room for error and so much wasted time with tasks like medication rounds and booking in of medications. 

A perfect example is the medication rounds – when we were doing medication rounds with paper, things were so needlessly complicated and took far too long. Before I got there, it was at the point where the medication rounds would take half the morning, and we only have eight people living at Kismet. So, with paper, it took half a morning just to do the medication rounds for eight people! And that’s before you even consider any safety issues that are common with paper-based systems.  

The time it would take to do everything was just ridiculous. And even then, with all that time taken to administer medicines and order stock, things still wouldn’t always be right. There were many times where we had to make phone calls at weekends because the stock wasn’t right because it hadn’t been counted properly – these are the kinds of issues that are bound to happen if you have to rely on a process as flawed as paper MAR charts. 

So eventually, I recognised that something had to change. I even went as far as to say that if we don’t do something different, we’re all going to be out of jobs! 

Implementing ATLAS eMAR and its immediate benefits

That’s when we decided to implement ATLAS eMAR. I’d worked with ATLAS eMAR previously and I love it; I knew how much it would help us. I knew that as soon as we implemented it, we would start to see the differences it could make. For example, I knew that it was going to save us a lot of time and money pretty much straight away, even just in the time we were taking to do the medication rounds. 

And that’s exactly what happened; now that we’re using ATLAS eMAR, everybody loves it, and everybody realised that it is the best thing that we could have done to really improve our overall safety and efficiency.  

It’s brilliant for the staff. For example, one of our team members who works on the night staff does not speak English as a first language, so understandably he found certain aspects of recording medication management on paper a little more challenging than most. Even down to the little things like people’s handwriting, for those working in care for whom English is not their first language, this can create real barriers to reaching the kind of performance levels you as a manager know they are capable of. But he has taken to ATLAS eMAR like a duck to water, even saying to me “Oh my god, this is amazing! Why have we not had this before?”

How ATLAS eMAR benefits the whole home

But it’s not just the staff that are seeing the benefits. A product like ATLAS eMAR can improve every aspect of medications throughout the whole home, from top to bottom. And that’s why it’s been so good for us, because everybody in a care setting has a part to play that adds value for the resident – whether it’s the care assistant helping with the medication rounds or whether it’s the group manager or owner overseeing the performance, everybody needs to perform to their best to make a care setting thrive and run smoothly, and ATLAS helps to make the jobs (and lives!) of everybody working in care easier – I know it’s certainly done that for me! 

I have observed that the staff now have so much more time to do other things rather than getting bogged down in the needless administrative work that comes with paper MAR charts like counting all the medication, checking all the stopped medications and things of that nature. But now because it’s a live system, so long as we make sure to keep it synced, it takes almost no time at all to perform these tasks and we can rely on everything to be as it should.  

From three hours to ten minutes

So, she gave it a try, and before she knew it, the whole monthly order was completed. It was sent to me as the registered manager and then I sent it on to the pharmacy – all in all, a process that could easily take three hours or more using paper took about ten minutes. That alone is a huge implication on the cost saving because our time is incredibly valuable as people working in care, and ATLAS eMAR gives us an incredible tool to achieve the maximum output with our time.  

It really is the perfect balance; it’s that rare thing in digital solutions in that one aspect does not come at the expense of another – with ATLAS you have a system that is easy to use, more efficient and safer. I’ve worked in the care sector for more than 15 years, and I can tell you it’s the best solution for medication management I’ve come across. 
I’m aware that there are other people working in care settings out there who will probably read this, and if there was one thing I would say to them it’s simply this: just do it, just get ATLAS eMAR because it will save you so much time and so much money.  

Don’t get me wrong, there will be a cost out of the door that you need to pay, but actually when you think about it, it’s probably not even the equivalent of an hourly rate for one of your senior staff members. For that money, you’ll be getting a system that will not just save you hours upon hours every week, but it will drastically reduce the likelihood of errors in medication administration, so it could even save lives.