Atlas eMAR is a digital system designed to make managing medicines in care homes easier, safer, and more organised.
What does it do?
Supports the full medication process — from ordering prescriptions, to dispensing, delivery, and giving the medicine to residents.
Helps manage stock — showing when to reorder regular and interim medicines.
Keeps records accurate and compliant — ensuring resident medication records are always up to date and meet inspection standards.
How does it work?
Centralised medication records are stored in a secure database, checked by pharmacists to ensure prescriptions match what’s needed.
This information is sent to the Atlas eMAR device, a handheld tablet-like computer used in the care home.
The device scans the barcode on medicine labels, confirming:
The right resident
The right medicine
The right dose
The right time
Every administration is automatically recorded — no need for manual entries.
The device regularly syncs with the pharmacy, updating any changes like new doses or times.
Why it matters:
Atlas eMAR helps ensure residents get the correct medication safely and on time, while giving care staff confidence and reducing paperwork
How does Atlas eMAR work?
The Atlas eMAR device looks like a tablet, but it’s actually a smart handheld computer that stores all the important details about your care home, residents, and their medications in one place.
It has a scanner on top and a camera on the back, and it works by scanning the barcode on each medicine label. This helps make sure the right resident gets the right medicine, at the right dose, and at the right time — every time. It also automatically records the administration, so staff don’t need to write anything down manually.
All the information on the device is regularly backed up through a process called synchronising. This also updates the device with any changes from the pharmacy, like new doses or updated times for giving medication.
Atlas PCS Main Menu
The Atlas eMAR main menu has been designed to be user friendly. It comprises a number of functions that have been specifically designed to make your experience easy, simple and straightforward. These functions are shown as icons, each with numbers and colours which indicate required action. These numbers can include the residents who are due medication immediately, the stock that needs to be booked in, and any medication order awaiting completion. The numbers that appear in the middle of the icons refer to the number of actions needed, e.g. a number appearing in the View Residents icon shows how many residents need to have medicines accounted for at that particular time of day.
Items which are pending action will display in red, any icon in grey or clear white does not need any action to be taken at this time. If an icon is showing blue it means that there is a resident who is currently away from the home, this should be checked at every round to ensure that the resident has not returned to the home between rounds and is given their medication if needed.
At the top right hand corner is a picture of a battery. The number of bars inside the battery image show how much battery life is left in the device. It is important not to let this run at less than 3 bars at any time. If the battery runs out completely, you will not be able to use the device for at least 30 minutes while it charges.
The current time should show next to the battery life symbol.
Your name, once logged on, will feature in the top left hand corner, as will the name of the unit. Make sure before you start that both your name and the unit name is correct.