February 7th 2024
One of the most critical functions for ensuring the well-being of clients at any care service is an effective medication management system. As more and more care providers opt for digital solutions over traditional paper-based systems, the benefits of going digital begin to shine through.
Katy Ford, Care Manager at Friendly Care Residential & Nursing Home, shares how they’ve been able to leave behind paper-based medication management with confidence by adopting the Camascope eMAR system.
The need to streamline
When Friendly Care embarked on this transformative journey, their objectives were crystal clear—to decrease medication administration round times and monthly check-in durations in order to enhance the quality of care. The existing paper-based Medication Administration Record (MAR) chart system presented challenges, including identifying low stock items and the need for urgent prescriptions from the GP.
Paper based management also sometimes made it difficult to identify what stock was being carried and what medication was in the trolley. If those records weren’t up-to-date, the MAR wouldn’t be either, leading to further inaccuracies.
This was frustrating for Friendly Care, and they knew it was time for a change. After attending virtual and face-to-face training with Camascope, Katy and her team felt assured that the issues they faced would improve, and that they would also be able to enhance systems they already had in place.
Camascope supported them by completing the full set up and teaching Katy’s team about every aspect of the system. As Katy shares,
“They were a huge help, and the support is ongoing. They continue to walk us through updates when they improve their system and have also supplied us with competency assessments to ensure our staff members have full knowledge and are competent to use the system as it changes.”
The transition to digital
Camascope is a complete end-to-end medication management system that enables two-way communication between pharmacies and care homes. It offers providers real-time insights into prescription status’, allowing them to see when prescriptions are processed and out for delivery and supports them to enhance medicine compliance whilst minimising errors – which was exactly what Friendly Care were looking for. As Katy explains,
“The Camascope system enables the medication administrator to be more efficient on each medication round and allows the administrator to manage time effectively.”
Adopting a new system requires some adjustment which was the case for the team at Friendly Care. However, it didn’t take long for the staff to find their feet once they’d used the eMAR system a few times. As Katy shares,
“It did take a few tries for our team to build their confidence in using the platform, but we all seemed to adjust to it quite quickly”.
The benefits of using Camascope
Since using Camascope, the team at Friendly Care have been thrilled with its features as Katy shares,
“It alerts you to low stock, possible clashes, the time medicine is due, when it was last administered, and even if it was missed. It lets us know if a medicine has been stopped previously and why, and it also saves us a lot of time!”. Katy adds,
“Our monthly change overs could sometimes take days prior to using the eMAR system so it has considerably decreased the time we spend, not only ordering medication but auditing it too. This in turn has saved money on staffing hours and materials such as paper”.
Transitioning to an eMAR system has helped the Friendly Care team to streamline their medication management process with confidence. This has had the positive effect of enhancing the overall quality of care the team provides and because of this, Katy tells us the team would never want to go back to paper MAR charts again.
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