A MAR chart is the record of every dose a carer gave, prompted, or did not give, and why. On paper it sits in a folder in the kitchen and the office reads it once a month. An electronic MAR (eMAR) is the same record kept on the carer's phone at the moment of the dose, with the office seeing a missed or refused dose the same day. This page covers what eMAR software must do and how Carelo's works.
A medication administration record (MAR) lists each prescribed medicine with its dose and times, and a space for the carer to record the outcome at each time: given, prompted, refused, not required, or missed, with initials and a reason code. A MAR sheet is the paper form, usually printed by the pharmacy monthly. An electronic MAR chart, or eMAR, holds the same record in software.
The difference is not the medium. It is when the record is made and who can see it. Paper is completed at the visit if you are lucky and seen by the office at month end. An eMAR is completed at the visit by construction and seen by the office immediately.
NICE guideline NG67, on managing medicines for adults in the community, sets the expectations for providers in England. Nothing in it requires software; everything in it is easier with software that records at the visit.
On the person's record. Each medication is held on the service user's profile with strength, dose, times, level of support and the response rule. The office enters and changes it; the carer never edits a prescription from the app.
Inside the visit. When a carer checks in, the doses due during that call sit at the top of the visit. Given, prompted, refused or missed is one tap, with a reason where the outcome needs one.
Offline. With no signal the eMAR entries queue on the phone with their original time and send when the phone reconnects.
Locked to the visit. The medication record belongs to the visit and the carer who was checked in, so the time, the person and the dose cannot drift apart.
PRN medicines carry their reason and interval rules, and the carer sees when the last dose was given before deciding. Refused doses are recorded as refused with the reason, which is the person's right and also a signal when it repeats. Missed doses, meaning a scheduled dose with no record, are the safety event: the office sees them the same day rather than when the chart comes back.
The office sees doses due against doses recorded by client, by carer and by week, with refusals and misses listed. That is the medicines compliance figure an inspector asks for, produced without a spreadsheet, and the same view the manager uses for the monthly medication audit and for supervision conversations.
Most providers keep the pharmacy's printed sheet in the home as the source of what was prescribed and use the eMAR as the record of what was given. Setting up a client's medications takes a few minutes per person and is part of free migration if you are moving from another system. Carers need a half-hour introduction; the one-tap outcome is faster than initialling a sheet. The eMAR guide goes into levels of support, NICE expectations and the errors paper lets through.
A medication administration record kept in software rather than on paper. It lists every prescribed medicine and records the outcome of every dose at the time it is given, with the carer, the visit and the reason attached. Carelo's eMAR runs inside the carer app during the visit.
Included. eMAR is part of every Carelo plan, from £59 a month for up to 15 carers, alongside the rota, call monitoring, timesheets, compliance and both apps.
Yes. The CQC is concerned with whether the record is accurate, complete, made at the time and available for inspection, not with whether it is paper or electronic. An eMAR completed at the visit meets that more reliably than paper.
The record is kept on the phone with its original time and sent when the connection returns. The office sees the real time of the dose.
The office, on the service user's record. Carers record outcomes; they do not edit prescriptions. Every change to a medication is logged with who made it and when.
MAR is the record itself; eMAR is that record kept electronically. The content is the same. The eMAR is completed at the moment of the dose and visible to the office immediately, which is what makes missed and refused doses visible the same day.