draft - Linking GPs, Care Homes & Pharmacies Through Connected Software

One of the key healthcare challenges has always been how health and social care staff can make informed judgements without up-to-date, accurate information. At VCare, we are tackling this problem head-on and believe that we can solve healthcare communication issues through the power of integrated, simple-to-use technology.

The journey so far

VCare’s technology was born out of a clear need in the market for pharmacies to increase their service offerings to care homes in a simple way. This led to the company developing a connected eMAR (electronic medication administration record) product encompassing all elements of a care home’s medicines management processes.

VCare’s eMAR replaces the need for paper-based MARs and audits. Administration can continue to work offline, and the system can send reminders and alerts for a variety of situations including (but not limited to): missed meds, low stock, and audits. This ensures that the right medication is administered to the right person at the right time.

As a response to the pandemic and driven by a need for our clients to monitor resident health closely, we extended the platform to include the now NHS-accredited Remote Monitoring module.

The module is commonly used in a care home setting (as well as in community virtual wards) to ensure both NHS and care home staff are alerted to resident health deteriorations. GPs no longer need to rely on anecdotal information when visiting care homes as the system provides a clear history of resident health. Visualising vitals alongside medicines data gives clinicians a full picture of a resident’s risk and recovery profile.

The current situation

Throughout the journey, we have been reminded time and time again that communication between GP, care home and pharmacy was the root of many issues. Keeping each other up to date with the rapidly changing situation is a difficult task, and ensuring it is done on an auditable digital platform is even harder.

Saurabh Shah, pharmacist and VCare founder, can recall many examples of this from when his time as a pharmacist, dealing with care homes.

“Care homes would be stuck between a GP’s reception staff who would say that prescriptions were issued, and on the other hand, pharmacists would be saying they haven’t received anything from the GP. The pharmacist would often try to get involved to resolve the situation, but GP staff wouldn’t be able to confirm if repeat prescriptions had been ordered or not”.

There are countless examples of similar communication issues. Emails are too detached from a person’s care record and frequently lead to follow-up questions that can take days to receive a response from. Often an organisation’s email address is shared, making it impossible to trace the root of information.

Phone calls between the 3 parties are so frequent that it is near impossible for a pharmacy to scale the servicing of care homes easily. NHS funding, an often-contentious issue in community pharmacy, means that increases in revenue are often correlated to increased management costs. It is unlikely that a pharmacy would want to employ a dispenser full-time just to claim prescriptions and answer calls.

Tackling the issue

VCare at its core is a problem-solving company and there is a clear need to produce a single platform that allows for seamless communication between all 3 parties.

Using various NHS integrations, VCare provides pharmacies with a platform that can receive and process EPS prescriptions and automatically send this information directly into a care home’s eMAR system, which acknowledges receipt of the medications. GPs see that the pharmacy has the prescription and pharmacies can see the home’s acknowledgement.

A care home can submit a repeat request straight into the GP system and a pharmacy sees this request has been made within the VCare platform. The GP is free to accept or reject this, but either way, the care home will be able to see the prescription status.

Telephone communication between each stakeholder will never disappear completely. There are nuanced situations, especially those requiring clinical interventions or advice, that will always be more efficiently dealt with by picking up the phone. However, if the majority of calls are eliminated that involve standard queries and the communication is just ‘part of the system’ then there is nothing holding back a pharmacy’s ability to scale and work with more care homes.

VCare is on a larger mission of connecting the dots in healthcare and we see pharmacies being connected to the centres of care as an integral step.

If you’d like to know how VCare's eMAR, remote monitoring or pharmacy solution can work for your organisation, contact us to find out more.