Pharmacy Integration Improves Senior Living eMAR

One of the critical issues that senior living facilities face is how well they communicate with their pharmacies. Traditionally, pharmacies have had an arm's length connection, leaving a heavy burden on the community to communicate with pharmacies. Not only is this inefficient, but it can have far-reaching compliance and safety consequences for residents and operators alike. This is where integration between pharmacies and your Electronic Medication Administration Record (eMAR) system can play a critical role. An eMAR system that integrates with pharmacies allows prescription refills, medication changes and other orders to be sent with the tap of a screen.

The advent of the eMAR system has been a major step forward in ensuring quality care, but simply tracking medications in an electronic form isn’t enough: forward-thinking senior housing facilities need to go the extra mile and make sure that these records are fully integrated with all of their other operations to create a seamless flow of data and full visibility to everyone in the continuum of care.

As an alternative to the paper-based MAR charts used in the past, an eMAR is an electronic medical records software, which provides a range of benefits including improved cost efficiency, improved care, improved communication, and more.

The Benefits of eMAR
By using an eMAR solution that is connected with your resident care software, you will have a complete picture of the resident’s care plan, including medication administration records. Glennis ACCUflo is a leading eMAR that plays a critical role in improving operations and health outcomes:

• Improve reporting and care continuity: With ACCUflo, you can oversee treatments and med passes in one centralized location, with information updated in real-time. Built-in alerts and reporting improve resident safety and staff compliance. ACCUflo also works offline and automatically syncs when the connection is restored, ensuring continuity of care.

• Reduce medication errors: Using the cloud based ACCUflo, you can securely manage resident medical records and medication administration for improved efficiency, safety, and compliance, and most importantly, reduce preventable hospital admissions from medication errors. ACCUflo provides better accuracy and efficiency. Its multi-dose package scanning capability allows you to scan one package that contains multiple medications to be given to a resident.

• Ensure compliance: Extensive reporting of clinical, regulatory, and quality information, including secure documentation of every medication, treatment, behavior, and care task, ensures your community is always up to necessary standards and survey-ready at any time.

“ACCUflo gives us confidence,” says Andrea Swinson, Resident Care Coordinator at Spring Arbor of Wilmington. “We know we are correctly giving out medications to residents. It’s kind of like an extra set of eyes.”

The Bridge Between Your Community and Pharmacy
With the extensive network of pharmacy systems with which ACCUflo integrates, you can take advantage of the many benefits of a pharmacy-integrated eMAR solution:

• Accurate order communication: From straightforward to complex medication orders, ACCUflo ensures order accuracy and appropriateness, taking the burden off caregivers who otherwise must call in or fax orders. Change logs flow right into pharmacy systems, providing you assurance that your community has the right order for medications dispensed, including refills and renewals. 

• Optimize medication administration: Automating the distribution, tracking, and reordering of medications dramatically reduces the time spent on documentation and eliminates risk associated with error prone paper processes.

• Optimized integration: ACCUflo boasts a higher level of integration and can easily manage more complex orders. Examples include prescription refills that require a new Rx number, and prescriptions that have alternating or tapering doses.

"If a community is looking to streamline their process for tracking controlled substance inventories at each shift change, I would highly recommend Glennis ACCUflo.” Laura Zell, Client Services CARE OPTIONS RX

An eMAR system that seamlessly works with your pharmacy closes any gaps. By tracking all medication activity electronically and making sure that the relevant data is shared through all internal channels, senior living facilities can dramatically reduce their risk and improve safety and efficiency.

Learn more about Glennis ACCUflo and our network of pharmacy partners.