Potential advantages and drawbacks to electronic medicine management systems for UK long-term care facilities: A literature review

Purpose: The use of health information technology (HIT) is increasing in care home settings; although slower than other healthcare providers including hospitals, acute and ambulatory settings. With a growing amount of long-term care facilities keen to research or implement HIT, this literature review aims to provide an overview of possible benefits and drawbacks long-term care facilities could encounter if choosing to implement HIT. Methodology: A literature review using technology, medication management and residential care search terms was conducted in November 2017 using the following databases: Proquest, PubMed and Scopus. Discussion and Conclusions: This literature review suggests that long-term care facilities are at various stages in the transition to using electronic medicines management resources and there are mixed results on the impact of implementing these systems. Possible benefits highlighted are reductions in medication errors and auditing functionality, whilst potential drawbacks could include behavioural consequences on residents. There are inconclusive results on cost efficiency and time requirement measures. Future Work: Future research examining both the impact on care processes and in turn the effect of any changes on resident outcomes when using electronic systems are greatly needed.