For many hospice clinicians, scheduling and recording medication in the IPU is a timely and manual process even if you are using a MAR. This is because the MAR often isn’t tied to the EMR. Further, if the MAR is built on old technology or not specifically designed for hospice care, the automation that can make your job easier may not be in place.
Are you working with a sMARt MAR? We put together a list of questions to help you find out.
Is Medication Frequency Scheduled Automatically or Manually?
Manually scheduling medications inevitably leads to errors. Whether there is a documentation error, a missed dose, or a scheduling mix up, automatic scheduling can help clinicians avoid understandable accidents. Even if the MAR has the medication frequency, manual scheduling still results in redundancy for clinicians.
Clinicians should be able to add the medication to the care plan and automatically have the medication frequency added to the schedule.
Does the MAR Send Alerts When Medications Are Due?
With modern technology, clinicians should not need to rely on a schedule of meds. Instead, the MAR should be intelligent enough to proactively let the clinician know when the medication is due and alert the clinician.
Like scheduling, alerts help clinicians stay compliant and give hospices peace of mind that nothing is being overlooked or missed.
Is Record-Keeping Simple or Time-Consuming?
A top complaint in the hospice IPU is charting redundancy. When it comes to the MAR, clinicians should be able to simply enter that the medication was administered without redundancy with the patient chart or other data entry fields.
Ready to Switch to a sMARt MAR?
Hummingbird makes medication administration in the IPU easy with it’s latest MAR updates. The updates allow clinicians to
- Automatically schedule when meds should be administered
- Alert the user when a med administration is due and allows them to document that it was done
- Complete the process without manual scheduling or entering information twice
Contact us to learn more.