Earlier this month a national report found care home staff aren’t always providing the right support and help with medicines in line with what is documented in individual care plans. The worrying finding was highlighted by the CQC’s Medicines in Health and Adult Social Care – Learning from Risks and Sharing Good Practice for Better Outcomes report. (1)
The report brought together the CQC’s learnings from its regulatory activity about the risks from medicines. It acknowledged while there has been a lot of work to ensure the safer use of medicines across services, there were still areas for improvement and it highlighted the need for providers to understand the risks and enable better outcomes.
While the report did not state the exact reasons that residents did not receive the correct support with their medication in line with care plans, it is likely a range of disparate systems for medication administration and care planning are contributing towards the problem.
Now two of the main providers of those systems are working together to provide a more joined up and integrated approach. Omnicell who provide the Omnicell eMAR system to care homes across the country and Person Centred Software – an electronic care plan provider – are planning to share agreed data between the two applications to make processes simpler and more efficient for staff and safer for patients.
Once live, customers will have the ability to share medication prescribed and administration details from Omnicell eMAR in Person Centred Software’s care planning solution, Mobile Care Monitoring. This information will be used by staff to give greater visibility of a patient’s medication in line with their care plan.
Currently care planning and monitoring are typically managed separately to medication administration despite the fact that medication can impact the delivery of care. It is hoped by sharing the data between both systems will drive best practice for care staff and deliver better health outcomes for residents.
Some of the benefits the new partnership approach hopes to bring about include allowing care staff:
- to see the latest prescribed medications for the residents to support them in conducting assessments and reviews without having to switch between two systems;
- to understand what medications have been prescribed for residents so they have the information they need to best support residents, inform decision making processes and keep residents safe from harm;
- to know when new medications have been prescribed for residents so they can monitor or adjust their care plan accordingly;
- to have a summary of the medication, dose and time administered or refused so they better understand the complete history of a resident;
- to correlate the data for medication administered with other data, such as falls, accidents, incidents or other activities.
Paul O’Hanlon, Managing Director for Omnicell said: “Omnicell eMAR ensures care home medication administration processes are safe, simple and compliant but it is only part of the picture. By teaming up with Person Centred Software, Omnicell is bringing together two vital elements of care home practice. Our aim is to ensure care staff have everything they need to provide the very best support and care to residents so they receive the maximum benefits of their medication with no room for error.”
Andrew Coles, Head of Product Management at Person Centred Software said: “We are delighted to be working with Omnicell as part of our ecosystem strategy. Effective partnerships mean that each software provider can focus their time and investments into their in-depth, specialist solutions; leading to better products for our customers and the ability to drive quality of care to the people they support. Partnering with Omnicell means providers can use the right set of solutions to solve the challenges they face with no compromises.”
References
- CQC. Medicines in health and adult social care – Learning from risks and sharing good practice. 2019.
Omnicell eMAR
Omnicell eMAR uses patient specific barcoding coupled with original packs or blister packaging to automate the entire medication administration process within care homes making it safe, simple and compliant for everyone involved. The system gathers information, provides prompts and accurate instructions for care home staff and gives managers real time medication administration data at the touch of a button.
The system improves communication between pharmacy and care homes and is the eMAR system of choice for some of the biggest pharmacy chains in the UK. It won Independent Community Pharmacist’s Product of the Year award in 2017.
Book a demo of Omnicell eMAR:
Call 01614 135333
enquiriesuk@omnicell.com
www.omnicell.co.uk/emar/
Mobile Care Monitoring from Person Centred Software
Mobile Care Monitoring is an intelligent mobile solution for evidencing care interactions, electronic care planning and reporting from Person Centred Software.
Our solution enables over 1,200 care homes in the UK to evidence care as it happens with our icon-driven app, which creates more than 2 million care notes every day. Our solution reduces paperwork and gives carers more time to care, improving care quality and the care cycle overall.
We help providers to be recognised for innovative, transparent and person-centred care.
Our philosophy is person-centred; providing benefits to everyone involved in care by delivering exceptional tools.
Find out more about Mobile Care Monitoring
Call 01483 357657
hello@personcentredsoftware.com
www.personcentredsoftware.com
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