Electronic medication administration record (eMAR)

Why it matters

Administration is the last step before a medicine reaches the patient, so an error made there is the least likely to be caught. WHO's Global Patient Safety Challenge on medication safety set the aim of reducing severe avoidable medication related harm by 50 per cent within five years [1]. An eMAR replaces paper drug charts that can be lost, hard to read or out of step with the current order.

Key points

• Each dose is recorded against the active order, with the time and the nurse responsible.
• Doses held or missed are recorded with a reason, so the treating team can see gaps in treatment.
• A systematic review of electronic medication systems among hospital inpatients examined their effect on medication error rates and associated harm [2].
• Adverse events noted at administration feed medication safety review [3].

In Moana

Nurses record each dose as given, held or missed, with adverse event notes, against the doctor's prescription in MOANA Desktop.

Sources

1. WHO launches global effort to halve medication related errors in 5 years, World Health Organization, 2017
2. How effective are electronic medication systems in reducing medication error rates and associated harm among hospital inpatients?, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, summarising the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 2021
3. Medication errors and adverse drug events: PSNet primer, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, accessed 2026