Electronic Medication Administration Record

Electronic Medication Administration Record (eMAR)

Imagine this familiar sight in the corridors of many long term-care facilities: a paper MAR the size of the New York City yellow pages sits atop a medication cart, as nurses transcribe individual dosage instructions from handwritten record- and inefficient process with no clearly defined work flow that places needless stress on nursing staff. Electronic medication administration record systems (eMARs) are work flow management systems that automate the inefficient and error prone paper-based MAR process. (Russo, M. 2008)

eMAR, or the Electronic Medication Administration Record, is a point-of-care process that utilizes barcode reading technology to monitor the bedside administration of medications. Generally accepted inventory management processes include:

·         Pharmacy to track medication inventory

·         Inventory management concepts to include item identification

·         Patient wristbands and medical records

·         Verification process and decision-making tool at 'point-of-care' at bedside

At the patient bedside, if any of the scanned information does not match the doctor's orders, a warning message is provided to the clinician.

Process: The eMAR process inserts sentry-like activities at the critical bedside point-of-care, minimizing the opportunities for human error or lack of documentation. The process adds the automatic data collection element provided by employing data capturing technology.

Benefits: The overriding benefit of implementing an eMAR system in a hospital is to ensure patient safety and reduce medication administration error. By employing decision-support software applications five different hospitals documented lowering their error rate anywhere from 54 to 87 percent. Hospital administrations can target eMAR systems as a wise investment, supporting the use of member-dollars to implement these processes.

Types of technology: When examining the technology at play in the eMAR process, it's important to understand several items relating to the technology in play:

Wireless 'Bluetooth' Technology.

Bluetooth wireless technology is used to transmit data or telecommunication signals in a 'Personal Network' scenario. A Personal Network is defined by the hardware/software devices being worn on your person or close to your person.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Technologies - Working Together

Wireless Code readers utilize the Bluetooth V1.2 standard, with Adaptive Frequency Hopping (AFH) to minimize interference between competing signals in a specific radio frequency band - the 2.4GHz band. All Bluetooth devices utilize AFH, providing a proven, standards-based solution to peaceful coexistence between Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices, and also between one or more Bluetooth Devices within the same transmitting areas.

References

Russo, M. eMar and mobile computing. Nursing Homes, 2008;57(1):32.