Medication dispensing is a complex, multiple-step process. Many of these steps are specifically related to drug administration, a key activity of nursing professionals.
In order to increase the efficiency and safety of care processes, several establishment are now progressively making use of electronic tools.
The result of a major partnership between the Nursing Care Directorate at CHU Sainte-Justine and the Pharmacy Department, along with the support of the Academic Care Executive Directorate, in 2015-2016, the medication administration record (hard copy MAR) was replaced with the implementation of the electronic medication administration record (EMAR).
This application is now used every day by the CHU Sainte-Justine hospitalization units’ nursing staff.
It aims to improve the safety of the medication dispensing process and reduce the risks associated with handwritten drug dosages. The direct interaction between the pharmacy and the EMAR, the availability of clinical references from the EMAR, as well as all functions available from the application (validation of prescriptions, double-checking process, management of schedules, etc.) help improve the drug administration process.
Access to information on the administration of dosages by all health care professionals is also one of the major improvements associated with the EMAR, as well as the traceability of the actions taken by the nursing staff during drug administration.
Audits and measures taken as part of this project thus far highlight the benefits of this transformation.