Overview:

Private Duty Nursing Home Care is skilled care provided one-on-one by a Private Duty Nurse (RN or LPN) to medically fragile adults and pediatric patients in the comfort of their homes. A patient's unique and complex health challenges require personalizing care, tailoring it to the physician-ordered Plan of Care. Private Duty Nursing home care differs from traditional home health care as the service is typically provided in longer shifts, anywhere from 8 to 12 hours over a long period.

Patients receiving Private Duty Nursing care usually have complex medical conditions with many medications and treatments to be administered during the shift. Accurate, timely administration and documentation of medication and treatment administration is essential to patient safety and positive outcome.

Many Private Duty Home Care Agencies use Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Home Health Care Software designed for visit-based Home Health Care agencies with static PDF forms to document medication and treatment administration. These solutions pose many challenges to effectively managing medication and treatment administration. Managing and administering these medications and treatments on paper or on software that does not support dynamic eMAR/eTAR will require considerable manual effort leading to errors, missed medications, or treatments endangering patient safety.

Private Duty Nursing Home Care Agencies should leverage technology and use the right Home Health Care EMR software to manage medication and treatment administration. The trend in healthcare is to look for opportunities to provide more skilled care at patients' homes. Using the right EMR software platform will help home healthcare agencies to take advantage of this growing trend.

This blog will discuss some essential features a Home Care Software should have to efficiently manage, administer, and document medications and treatments while providing continuous care at a patient's home.

Essential Software Features for eMAR and eTAR

Medication Administration Records (MAR) and Treatment Administration Records (TAR) track the time and type of medications administered to the patient. A nurse administering the medication or treatments must document the time of care delivery and sign off on the clinical record. MAR and TAR serve as the clinical and legal records for the medications and treatments administered to the patient.

Electronic Medication Administration Record (eMAR) and Electronic Treatment Administration Record (eTAR) electronically track the administration of medications and treatments, replacing the paper MAR and TAR.

Most health care professionals, especially nurses, know the “five rights” of medication use: the right patient, the right drug, the right time, the right dose, and the right route. The five rights serve as a standard for safe medication and treatment administration.

Private Duty Nursing Home Care Agencies will benefit from implementing a software platform that supports eMAR/eTAR to get the “five rights” correct each time, improve operational efficiency, and patient safety.

The following are some of the essential features of Home Health Care EMR Software to support eMAR and eTAR.

Essential Software Features for eMAR and eTAR

Ease of Use

Nurses providing Private Duty Nursing Care are juggling multiple critical patient care tasks giving patients care during their shifts. An effective eMAR/eTAR software should have all the medications and treatments listed in the correct order for the shift making it easy to view and document administration. Nurses should be able to document vitals and measurements for the medication in the same. Access to previous medication administration history will be beneficial to the clinician.

Integrated

The home care EMR software platform should be able to document medication/treatment administration along with all other aspects of patient care. An integrated eMAR/eTAR tool that makes documenting medication/treatment administration part of the continuous care documentation will significantly reduce medication errors and improve the quality of care, compliance, and patient safety.

Real-Time Changes

Any changes to medication or treatment should reflect at the point of care in real-time. Care Plan changes or any other changes related to patient care should also be available at the point of care in real-time. Nurses at the point of care should be able to change medications, treatments, and care plan at the point of care.

Proactive Alerts

Patients with complex medical conditions receive Private Duty Home Care at their homes. Nurses providing care will be juggling many clinical tasks during the shift. An effective Home Healthcare EMR software should provide proactive alerts when medications or treatments are coming due or missed. The software should also have alerts for any vitals or measurements to be collected during administration. Drug interaction alerts at the point of care will also be beneficial.

Conclusion

Private Duty Nursing Home Care Agencies administering medications/treatments to patients at their homes should implement the right home health care software platform with the tools effectively document administration. CareVoyant understands the demanding needs to manage Private Duty Home Care Agencies providing skilled care for medically fragile patients while supporting other services like Non-Medical Personal Care, HCBS, and Home Health. CareVoyant Home Care software platform offers the right technology and tools to help a Private Duty Home Care Agency effectively manage the agency and improve operational efficiency and the agency's bottom line.

ABOUT CAREVOYANT

CareVoyant is a leading provider of cloud-based integrated enterprise-scale home health care software that can support all home-based services under ONE Software, ONE Patient, and ONE Employee, making it a Single System of Record. We support all home based services, including Home Care, Private Duty Nursing, Private Duty Non-Medical, Home and Community Based Services (HCBS), Home Health, Pediatric Home Care, and Outpatient Therapy at Home.

CareVoyant functions – Intake, Authorization Management, Scheduling, Clinical with Mobile options, eMAR/eTAR, Electronic Visit Verification (EVV), Billing/AR, Secure Messaging, Notification, Reporting, and Dashboards – streamline workflow, meet regulatory requirements, improve quality of care, optimize reimbursement, improve operational efficiency and agency bottom line.

For more information, please visit CareVoyant.com or call us at 1-888-463-6797.