Mobile workflows are rapidly becoming essential for safe, compliant inpatient medication management, as documentation requirements are increasingly rigorous and healthcare professionals require optimised tools to ensure medication safety. Test measurements conducted by a Medanets customer show that the mobile app can substantially reduce the time required to document medication administration, when compared to desktop systems or laptops mounted on medication trolleys.
In many countries, hospitals are seeing tighter expectations when it comes to documenting how and when medicines are given. Regulators and national health systems are tightening expectations around accuracy, real-time record-keeping and traceability. One clear example comes from Finland, where national medication-record reforms are underway. Other countries are also updating their medication-information practices, whether through national medication lists, digital documentation standards or renewed safety requirements.
A shared challenge is evident everywhere: healthcare professionals need tools that make accurate, structured documentation possible without adding to their workload. Compared to other digital tools—such as desktop systems or laptops mounted on medication trolleys—mobile solutions save professionals a significant amount of time.
Comparing workflows: mobile vs. traditional methods
In Finland, regular inpatient medications are not yet fully subject to mandatory documentation, which means they may go unrecorded simply because traditional workflows — walking back to a nurses’ station, logging into a desktop system, opening the medication chart — are slow. And even in countries or hospitals where such documentation is already required, the process easily disrupts care. Healthcare professionals need optimised tools to ensure medication safety.
Test measurements conducted by a Finnish Medanets customer, the Kymenlaakso wellbeing services county, compared three different workflows for documenting medication administration:
- Desktop EHR
- Medication trolley with EHR on laptop
- Medanets mobile app.
The results were striking: for routine medications, the mobile app cut documentation time by almost three minutes per patient per medication round. For PRN (given-as-needed) medications, the time saving exceeded two minutes per administration. Even when compared with the medication trolley workflow, the mobile solution saved more than two minutes per patient per medication round.
These savings were measured by comparing the full workflow:
- Desktop workflow: walking from the patient room to a workstation in the ward office, logging into the EHR, opening the medication list, completing medication administration entries, logging out.
- Medication trolley workflow: logging into the laptop on the trolley, opening the medication list, administering and documenting medication at bedside, logging out.
- Mobile workflow: logging into the app, scanning the patient wristband for identification, reviewing and editing doses where needed, administering and documenting medication at the bedside and logging out.
The difference is simple but impactful: mobile documentation eliminates steps, reduces interruptions and brings the streamlined, safe documentation system to the bedside.
A proven mobile solution for administration documentation
The Medanets Medication feature is in use in several Finnish healthcare organisations.
Hospitals adopt it primarily to:
- streamline medication administration documentation,
- reduce manual steps and errors,
- support standardised documentation models,
- and significantly cut time spent on routine workflows.
Professionals working in the wellbeing services county of Southwest Finland confirm the benefits: “The app allows us to document medication administration quickly and easily. In the EHR, the process is so time-consuming that it simply wasn’t possible to document every medication administration before the mobile app was introduced.”