Our client wanted to provide a better system for tracking medications in long-term health care facilities (nursing homes). This would include direct communication between computer systems at the pharmacy, a computer at the facility, and a touchscreen device on the medication cart used to distribute medications at the facility ... plus backup paper records and forms.
The solution
The centerpiece of the solution was an eMAR: an electronic medication administration record which replaced the voluminous and clumsy paper records currently in use. This tool had to be sophisticated enough to handle all of the information—and exceptions—that paper could handle, but also be clear enough that temporary nurses could learn the system with just a couple of minutes' training. And it had to have big touch targets for use on a touchscreen device.
I designed a smart, high-information-density timeline indicator showing the window in which each patient is due to receive their medication.
Looking at each patient, a nurse could see a wealth of information about what medications and procedures that patient needed.
I also designed the desktop computer interface for the system ...
... and paper forms for use in the event of a breakdown of the eMAR.
Full disclosure: My visual design partner deserves all of the credit for the look of all of these designs. But the timeline visualization element is fundamentally my own work, as is the basic structure of the improved paper MAR.
What's cool
The eMAR made it possible to liberate nurses from a fixed schedule of rounds, instead making clear at a glance which (and how many) patients had the most urgent needs, so that the nurse could make decisions on the fly about using time efficiently.
I also found opportunities to redesign the paper MAR to make it easier to work with.
