Communication 

The problem:  

• Efficiency in medicines management means having complete control of information, which can change very quickly in a care setting. Whether it’s a change of medications, or the change of dose needed, that information should be available in real-time so that care staff can make agile decisions to ensure the best quality of care for residents. However, with paper-based MAR charts, the information available is almost always out of date because it can’t be amended in real-time. 
• A lack of real-time communications also means that any changes in prescriptions that are made by doctors are not reflected in the information available, which can lead to pharmacists issuing prescriptions that have either been altered or stopped altogether. 
• A lack of real-time access to information also means that any changes made from a care home’s point of view will not be fed back to pharmacists as quickly as it needs to be, which can lead to wasted medications through the unnecessary or incorrect issuing of medications.  
• When using paper-based MAR charts, even seemingly innocuous issues like a person’s handwriting can have a huge cascading effect; it may not seem like much, but if a pharmacist is unable to read, or misreads, the handwriting of a member of staff, this can lead to wasted time because the pharmacist will need to get in touch to confirm what the records say. 

The solution: 

• With ATLAS eMAR, and ATLAS Pharmacy, there is complete two-way integration between care homes and pharmacies, meaning that any changes to medication, the ordering of medications or keeping on top of inventory in real-time are reflected instantaneously in the data shared on ATLAS eMAR. 
• Using ATLAS eMAR means that every round of medications, and every medication transaction, can be logged and recorded so that a full audit trail is available on the Centralised Dashboard. Not only does this mean that there is complete transparency between members of staff and the care homes with pharmacies, but it also makes it so much easier to keep on top of information that can be used for evidencing quality standards to regulators.  

Safety and accuracy

The problem:  

• Traditionally, with the use of paper-based MAR charts, it has been difficult to fully quantify the changes in requirements for medications. The lack of real-time information on changes to dose or time or the medications themselves meant that residents were either getting medications that were no longer necessary, or they were getting them at the wrong time. 
• In other cases, due to the inefficient nature of a paper system, it meant that the wrong person might get the medication. 
• For example, care home staff might have found themselves in the situation where they had to administer medications on strict four-hour intervals, but because of the amount of time it takes to book all of the medications in and the time it takes to record the administrations of medication as they go, someone who, on paper, had their dose at 8am might in reality have had it at 10am, and again will have it at 12pm. This can lead to serious safety issues, which, depending on the drug, can also have other over-medicating consequences like an increase in falls.  

The solution: 

• With ATLAS eMAR, the system of medication administration is completely safeguarded to ensure that the right resident gets the right dose at the right time because the Barcode Scanning feature of the hand-held device will issue a series of safety checks on things like missing doses or incorrect doses and flag users of potential issues. 
• By providing real-time information and safety checks in this way, ATLAS eMAR will ensure that care staff will always know what medications they need to administer to whom.  
• ATLAS eMAR is the only eMAR system that uses barcode scanning to ensure total accuracy of medications because unlike other eMAR systems that will just tell you, for example, what medication is in a packet, ATLAS will give you exact details on the amount.  

Insights and improvement 

The problem:  

• Reaching the highest possible levels of efficiency in care homes to ensure outstanding medicines management also means fostering a learning culture where issues are identified, and strategies are put in place to ensure best practices are always being followed. But with the huge gaps in information that exist with paper MAR charts, it can be difficult to even keep track of any issues before care home managers can even know where to begin trying to fix them. 
• Because care home staff work such long and difficult hours, even with the very best of intentions, it can be all-too-easy to forget to record medication errors, but sometimes it might be the case that medication errors on things like timing or dosage don’t even get picked up at all because staff don’t have the time to focus on accuracy to the degree they should and want to. 
• Data on aspects of medication timing, missed doses or the use of non-prescribed medications is almost impossible to fully keep track of with paper, which means managers don’t have the insights and the trends to analyse performance and identify gaps where staff training might be needed, or policies need to be amended. 
• This same issue is magnified with compliance officers or regional managers who, at the best of times, simply aren’t able to visit every single home they manage in a given day. Whether it’s not being able to reach someone on the phone because they’re in the middle of a medication round, or whether it’s having to fact-find for half a day before a regional manager even knows what the problems are, there is a baked-in hinderance when it comes to insights and improvements by using a paper-based system and even a less-integrated eMAR system. 

The solution: 

• Thanks to ATLAS’ unrivalled ability to gather and present data in an easily analysable way, care home managers have instant access to records that show things like missed doses or incorrect doses. They are able to look at insights into performance to identify areas of improvement in ways that would not have been possible with paper.  
• For regional managers or compliance officers who might be responsible for dozens of care homes all across the country, the Group Reporting feature gives them a ranking of performance for their care homes so they can see at a glance where and how they need to focus their energies, so before they have even left their desk, they have all the information they need to address underperforming care homes and, like care managers, promote a learning culture of constant feedback and improvement to ensure that medicines management is always as streamlined, as efficient and as safe as possible.