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BWH pharmacist Tola Dawodu, RPh, often fields calls from nurses checking on the status of a medication. If it’s a nurse from Connors Center post-partum floors waiting for antibiotics on the other end of the line, Dawodu can tell him or her exactly where it is or when it will arrive. This capability is thanks to the new the electronic medication record (eMAR) and pharmacy systems. BWH’s revolutionary technology allows pharmacists, nurses and physicians to track and document medications with the same precision as FedEx tracks its packages. “I can look it up and find out precisely who administered the drug and at what time,” Dawodu said. It’s as easy as a few clicks of the cursor on her compact laptop computer.
eMAR provides a seamless, electronic record of patient medication from order entry, pharmacy and administration – an effort in the works for more than 10 years.
“eMAR has gone very well from the Pharmacy perspective,” BWH Pharmacy Director Bill Churchill, MS, RPh, said. “It puts Pharmacy and nursing on the same computer platform, which is beneficial for us as caregivers and even more so for the patient,” he said. BWH went online with its computerized order entry in 1993, followed by the Web-based Pharmacy in 2003. In November, the final piece of the Electronic Medication Administration System (EMAS) puzzle started its implementation when eMAR began to roll out on floors eight through 10 in the Connors Center. The roll out continues with Tower 14 and 15 this month and next.
For pharmacists like Dawodu, the new process assists with prioritizing timelines for medication orders. A priority one medication must be available in less than 30 minutes; priority two, within the hour; and priority three, longer than one hour.
This prioritization allows for better organization and response time, especially given the 5,000 orders reviewed each day by BWH’s Pharmacists.
eMAR also cuts down significantly on the potential for errors, as pharmacy technicians and nurses use hand-held scanners to assure medications are accurately dispensed and administered to our patients. According to Dawodu, the system is very straight forward and user friendly. “If I don’t hear a beep, I know it’s not right,” she said.
For Churchill, eMAR puts his team of 65 pharmacists on the same page, or computer screens, as nurses in meeting our patients’ medication needs.