In an era in which patient safety is receiving more attention from both patients and providers, healthcare organizations are striving to eliminate paper from the care process in favor of the use of information technology (IT). The potential benefits to healthcare providers from this infusion of IT are many, and they extend beyond the point of medication administration to impact every area of the care process.

Using MCS eMAR, healthcare providers can:

• View medication administration-related tasks through flexible views and timeframes.
• Assess clinical information; for example, a patient pain response associated with an analgesic can be viewed alongside the medication administration information.
• Identify who administered the medication within results.
• View historical, current and future medication events for a patient.
• Provide consistent visual presentation across patient care suite of solutions.
• Promote standardization of associated documentation.

MCS eMAR is not directed towards or available for ambulatory EMR applications. Implementation of MCS eMAR at some of the prominent hospitals resulted in:

• Increased efficiencies through automated processes instead of paper processes reflecting reduced time and higher throughput resulting from automated processes of order entry and administration.

• Empowered nurses to provide better care

• Increased patient safety because the medication order specific alerts are relayed to physicians at the point-of-care and to pharmacists at the point-of-sale, with added verification of nursing staff and appropriate documentation complying with JCAHO.

• Driving operational efficiencies through standardization of documentation and streamlined workflow through out the medication administration and care processes.

• Improved bottom line because of healthcare providers able to charge at the time of administration instead of waiting to generate charges based on incorrect or incomplete paper records.

• Better cash flow because the charges captured at the point-of-care may be converted to claims sooner and resulting in cleaner claims resulting in decreased denials and reduced follow-up work from medical record or business office personnel.