Medication

eMAR-lite medication recording: Every dose recorded on the shift, in the worker's name.

Each person's medication list sits on their record, kept by your coordinators from the chart. On the shift, the rostered worker taps Given, Refused or Missed — saved in their name, at the moment it saves, on that shift — and the card shows what's already been recorded. The clinical record lays out the last seven days. It's eMAR-lite: it records what's prescribed and what happened at each dose.

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The medication administration record on a person's clinical record in Corella, from the NDIS demo: the last seven days for Metformin 500 mg, one tablet, oral, morning with breakfast — a green tick for Given on each day it was recorded and an empty box for today — above the legend: Given, Refused, Missed, Unavailable and No record

How it flows

From the chart to the record, one dose at a time.

1Your office adds it
A coordinator types each medicine from the chart — strength, dose, route, how often, instructions for the worker, the prescriber, whether it's PRN — and, for a Webster pack, the times it's packed at.
2The worker sees it
On the shift, each person's card lists their active medicines with your instructions, and a PRN badge on anything taken as needed. Above them sit a Webster pack's times, with what's packed in each.
3One tap
Given, Refused or Missed — saved in the worker's name, at the moment it saves, on that shift.
4The card shows it
“Given 9:20am · you” — and a second entry for that medicine on the shift waits behind Record another.
5Seven days at a glance
The clinical record lays out the week: a row for each medicine, a mark for each entry, an empty box where nothing was recorded.

What people ask first

The short answers, up front.

What is eMAR-lite?
Corella's medication record: each person's list, and what happened at each dose — given, refused, missed or unavailable — in the name of whoever recorded it.
What does a worker record?
Given, Refused or Missed, on a shift they're rostered to — one tap, in their name.
Who keeps the list?
Your coordinators — or a custom role you give Manage on participant records.
What happens to an entry once it's saved?
It stays exactly as recorded, for the worker and the office alike.
What if the dose changes?
Edit the medicine. Entries already recorded keep the name, strength, dose and route they were recorded with.
How does the office review doses?
On the seven-day grid on the clinical record, and on each shift's activity on the roster.

Whose screen

The same job, from each seat.

In the office

Coordinators keep each person's list on their Medications tab — add, edit, retire — with each medicine's last three entries beside it. Staff with Clinical records at Manage can also record a dose given outside a shift — Given, Refused, Missed or Unavailable, with an optional note — and open the seven-day grid on the clinical record. On the roster, each shift's activity shows the doses recorded on it.

On the phone

On the shift, the worker sees each person's active medicines — name, strength, dose, route, how often, your instructions and a PRN badge — with whatever's already been recorded for each on that shift, and taps Given, Refused or Missed. Where the pharmacy packs the person's tablets, each Webster pack time sits above the medicines and is recorded once for everything packed then. The buttons are there from when clock-on opens until a day after the shift ends; outside that, the card says why.

For families

What your team records about a person's medicines stays with your team.

A worked example

One medicine, one week.

A once-a-day tablet from the NDIS demo — Metformin, taken with breakfast — and what each part of Corella holds for it.

On the person's record: Metformin 500 mg · 1 tablet · Oral · “Morning with breakfast” — how often is your office's own words
On each shift: The worker taps Given — one entry, in their name, stamped when it saved
On the shift's activity: “… recorded a dose of Metformin”, with the outcome beneath
On the seven-day grid: A tick in each day's box once it's recorded — today's stays empty until someone does
If the dose changes: Edit the medicine: earlier entries keep the dose they were recorded with
If it's stopped: Tick Stopped: it comes off the shift card and stays on the record, marked Stopped, with its last three entries

An empty box means nothing was recorded in Corella that day, and “Morning with breakfast” is your office's own wording, shown to the worker as written.

In detail

The detail, on the real screens.

On the shift: one tap, in the worker's name

A support worker opens the shift on their phone and finds, on each person's card, that person's active medicines: the name and strength, the dose, the route, how often, your office's instructions, and a PRN badge on anything taken as needed. On a phone each medicine takes the card's full width, with Given, Refused and Missed in a row beneath. One tap records the outcome in the worker's name, stamped with the moment it saved and linked to that shift, and a message confirms it. In a shared house, each resident's card carries their own medicines, so the worker records each person in turn.

A support worker's shift on a phone, from the NDIS demo, scrolled to the person's medications: Levetiracetam 500 mg — one tablet, oral, twice daily, 08:00 and 20:00, with the instruction to report any seizure as an incident — and Midazolam (buccal) 10 mg with a PRN badge and its instruction, each with Given, Refused and Missed buttons in a row beneath; the emergency contact above them and the progress note below — Each medicine on the worker's card — “how often” in your office's own words (NDIS demo)

Webster packs: one tap for everything packed at that time

If the pharmacy packs a person's tablets in a Webster pack, tick the times each medicine is packed at — Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner or Bedtime, as the pharmacy's pack sheet lists them — and the person's Medications tab shows the pack, time by time. On the shift, each pack time is listed above the person's medicines with what's packed in it, the one the shift is most likely for first, and the worker records it once: Given, Refused or Missed writes an entry for every medicine packed then, in their name, on that shift — so the record still says what was given medicine by medicine, not just “the pack”. A second tap for the same time, or for a medicine from it already recorded on its own, waits behind Record another; Breakfast and Dinner on one long shift are two doses.

The Add medication dialog in Corella, from the NDIS demo: the medicine's name, strength, dose, route, frequency, instructions and prescriber, PRN and Stopped boxes, and the Packed in a Webster pack at row — Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Bedtime — with its note: As the pharmacy's pack sheet lists it. Leave all unticked for a medicine given from its own box. — A medicine's Webster pack times, ticked from the pharmacy's pack sheet (NDIS demo)

Once — and only while the shift is open

Each medicine on the card lists what's already been recorded for it on that shift — “Given 9:20am · you” — and its buttons then wait behind Record another, so a double tap or a colleague's out-of-date screen records it once: a second entry for the same medicine on the same shift is refused, saying what's there and who recorded it, unless the worker chooses Record another. The buttons are there for the worker rostered on the shift, from when clock-on opens — three hours before the start unless you change it — until 24 hours after it ends. Outside that window the card says why, and the office takes over.

The same shift screen for a shift that ended more than a day ago, from the NDIS demo: under Levetiracetam, a green tick and Given 9:20am · you; under each medicine, This visit ended more than 24 hours ago. Ask the office to record the dose. Below them the shift's charts — You have clocked off this shift. Ask the office to record it. — with blood glucose and when it was last recorded, then the progress note card, where the visit scribe waits for the person's signed permission to be recorded. — What's already recorded on the shift — and, a day after it ends, the office records instead (NDIS demo)

The list your office keeps

Each person's medication list lives on its own tab of their record. A coordinator — or a custom role you give Manage on participant records — adds each medicine with its strength, dose and route (from seven fixed choices), how often it's taken, instructions for the worker, the prescriber, whether it's PRN and, if the pharmacy packs it, the times it's packed at; Add and the edit pencil show only to them. Each medicine's card shows its last three entries — the outcome, when and who. When a medicine stops, tick Stopped: it comes off the shift card and stays on the record, marked Stopped, with its last three entries. A list that arrived as text — from a referral, or carried over when you moved to Corella — is a to-do: Needs attention on the participant list counts the active people whose list still has to be typed. Each medicine can say what it's for — one of the person's conditions, your own words, or both — and the worker sees that beside it on the shift. A medicine given as a course has a first and last day, and the shift lists it only on those days; Next review is the day it's next looked at, and Confirm review records who reviewed it and when.

A person's Medications tab in Corella, from the NDIS demo: Add medication, then Levetiracetam 500 mg with its dose, route, how often, instructions and a demo prescriber, and Recent administration listing three Given entries with the date, time and worker, and a Record button; below it Midazolam (buccal) 10 mg, PRN, with No records. — A person's Medications tab — each medicine with its last three entries (NDIS demo)

Every entry keeps what was given

When a dose changes, edit the medicine. The change applies from then on, and every entry already recorded keeps the name, strength, dose and route it was recorded with — the edit dialog says so. Where a medicine has changed since an entry, the Medications tab, the shift card and the grid say what the entry was recorded as, and the audit log shows each field the edit changed, before and after — “Dose: 1 tablet → 2 tablets”.

The Edit medication dialog in Corella, from the NDIS demo: Levetiracetam, 500 mg, 1 tablet, oral, twice daily, the instructions, a demo prescriber, PRN and Stopped unticked, the Packed in a Webster pack at row with its four times unticked, and under the fields: Entries already recorded keep the name, strength, dose and route they were recorded with. — Editing a medicine — what's already recorded keeps what it was recorded as (NDIS demo)

From the office, for a dose given outside a shift

Someone with Clinical records at Manage — the coordinator level, or a custom role you give it — can record a dose from the person's record: Given, Refused, Missed or Unavailable, with an optional note. It's for a dose given outside a shift, or one written up more than a day after a shift, once that shift's own buttons have closed.

The Record administration dialog in Corella, from the NDIS demo, with its outcome list open: Given, Refused, Missed and Unavailable, and the Record and Cancel buttons below — Recording from the office — Given, Refused, Missed or Unavailable (NDIS demo)

Seven days at a glance

The person's clinical record carries a medication administration record: the last seven days as a grid — a row for each active medicine with its dose, route and how often, a column for each day, and a mark for each entry, Given, Refused, Missed or Unavailable, with the time on hover. A medicine stopped during the week keeps its row, marked Stopped, while it has an entry there; a busy day shows three marks, oldest first, and “+N”; a dose written up after its shift sits on that shift's day and says “written up later”; a day with nothing recorded is an empty box, “No record” in the legend. Each shift's activity on the roster lists the doses recorded on it, and so does the worker's own “What happened on this shift”. Medication record, on the Medications tab, downloads every dose recorded for the person between two days you choose, up to two years, as a spreadsheet, with how many of each outcome were recorded.

A shift's drawer on the roster in Corella, from the NDIS demo, on its Activity tab: everything that happened on the shift, newest first — the worker clocked on, recorded a dose of Metformin, given, and clocked off, each with its date and time — A shift's activity on the roster — the dose recorded on it, between clock-on and clock-off (NDIS demo)

Around the list: the plan, the chart on file, incidents and training

Medication recording sits inside the rest of the record. The support plan's requires-assistance grid has a Medication row — independent, monitoring, prompting, partial or full assistance, or your own words — and it prints on the plan. File the signed chart from the GP or pharmacy on the person's record as visible to staff, and it's listed with their documents on the worker's shift screen. A medication error goes into the incident register as its own type in Corella's built-in list, and PRN medicine used to influence behaviour can be registered as a chemical restraint, with each use logged by a coordinator. Two starter courses on assisting with medication install from the training library, and medication administration is one of the competency register's starter skills.

The training library's starter courses in Corella, from the NDIS demo: under Medication Assistance and Management, Assisting Participants with Medication Part 1 and Part 2, each marked Mandatory, with its summary, its steps and test questions, and an Install button — Two starter courses on assisting with medication — workplace education your team edits (NDIS demo)

Corella keeps the record; your people decide

Corella keeps the medication record, and your nurses, coordinators and prescribers make every decision about it. Its own help for the Medications tab says what it does: it records what is prescribed and what happened at each dose — given, refused, missed or unavailable. Each medicine is typed from the chart by your office, and a Webster pack's times are ticked from the pharmacy's pack sheet. Software that works out a dose for a person, or decides that something about them needs attention, can be a regulated medical device in Australia, and Corella's medication record stays on the recording side.

The Worth knowing box from Corella's help for the Medications tab: It records what is prescribed and what happened at each dose — given, refused, missed or unavailable. — The Medications tab's own help, in the product's words (NDIS demo)

Straight answers

Safety built in: what warns you, and what it stops.

Warns you

A dose already recorded on this shift — the card lists it, “Given 9:20am · you”, before anyone taps again.
A tap that didn't get through — “That didn't go through. Refresh to check before trying again.”
An entry made before the medicine changed — it says what it was recorded as, route included.
A dose written up after its shift ended — it says “written up later” and stays on that shift's day.
A shift that ended more than a day ago — the card says to ask the office to record the dose.
A medication list that arrived as text — Needs attention counts the active people whose list is still to type.

Stops you

A second entry for the same medicine on the same shift — unless the worker chooses Record another.
A worker recording on a shift they aren't rostered to, on a cancelled shift, or more than 24 hours after it ends.
Anyone editing or deleting an entry — the worker or the office.
Finance-level staff adding, editing or recording — they see the list, not the buttons.
Deleting a person who has medication entries, or a staff member who has recorded a dose — Exit keeps the record.

Who stays responsible

Your nurses, coordinators and prescribers decide what's given, when and by whom. Corella records what's prescribed and what happened, in the words your office typed from the chart — and it stays on the recording side.

The rulebook

Questions, answered properly.

In the help centre

A support worker smiling beside an older man at his kitchen table as he presses a tablet from a blister pack himself, a glass of water and breakfast beside him

What does eMAR-lite record?

Each person's medication list and what happened at each dose: the worker on the shift taps Given, Refused or Missed, each entry carries their name and the time it was saved, the shift shows what's already been recorded, a Webster pack time is recorded once for everything packed then, and the clinical record lays out the last seven days.

What does a support worker actually do?

Opens the shift, finds each person's medicines on their card and taps Given, Refused or Missed. Where the person takes tablets from a Webster pack, each pack time is listed above the medicines with what's in it, and one tap records that time for every medicine packed then. It saves straight away in their name, linked to the shift; the card lists it — “Given 9:20am · you” — and a second entry for that medicine needs Record another. The buttons are there on a shift they're rostered to, from when clock-on opens (three hours before the start, unless you change it) until 24 hours after the shift ends. The tap is the whole entry; after an as-needed dose, Add follow-up records how it went, and a reason goes in the progress note.

What happens when a dose is refused or missed?

It's recorded as the worker tapped it, and it shows on the shift's activity in the office, on the person's record and on the seven-day grid, where a coordinator reviews it. If something went wrong, report it in the incident register — “Medication error” is one of Corella's built-in incident types.

How are PRN (as-needed) medicines handled?

They carry a PRN badge wherever they appear, and a PRN dose is recorded as Given like any other; a second one on the same shift is recorded on purpose with Record another. Your PRN rules — the gap between doses, a daily maximum — go in the instructions the worker sees beside the medicine. After giving one, the worker taps Add follow-up on the shift and writes how it went — one follow-up per dose, in their name and time — and the office reads it beside the dose. The reason goes in the progress note, and where you keep a PRN observation chart for the person, the worker records it from the shift while clocked on.

Can a medication prompt hold up clock-off?

Yes, as a must-do task on the person's plan: the worker clocks off once it's ticked. The tick sits beside the medication entry, which the worker records on its own.

How is a wrong entry set straight?

Someone with Clinical records at Manage records what actually happened from the person's record, with a note, and both entries stay — every entry is kept exactly as recorded. Corella also stops the commonest slip: a second tap, or a colleague's out-of-date screen, recording the same medicine on the same shift again, unless the worker chooses Record another.

Who sets up the list, and what happens when a dose changes?

Coordinators — or a custom role with Manage on participant records — add and edit medicines. Editing changes the medicine from then on, and what was given stays as given: every entry already recorded keeps the name, strength, dose and route it was recorded with, and the screens show what an older entry was recorded as. The audit log shows each field an edit changed, before and after. When a medicine stops, tick Stopped and it stays on the record with its last entries.

What can we show an auditor?

The person's record shows each medicine's last three entries — the outcome, when and who; the clinical record shows the last seven days; each shift's activity shows the doses recorded on it. The audit log, a screen for administrators, holds every entry with who, when and the outcome, and an edit to a medicine shows each changed field before and after.

Who can see a person's medications, and who can record a dose?

Support workers see them on shifts they're rostered to, and record there. The office sees the list and the latest entries on the person's record; recording from the office, and the seven-day grid, need Clinical records at Manage — the coordinator level, or a custom role you give it. Finance-level staff read the list. Medications stay with your team — the family portal is for funding, invoices and visits.

Where does a worker see the person's allergies?

On the shift: the need-to-know brief puts allergies first — each allergy your office recorded on the Medical history tab, with its reaction, then the allergy notes exactly as typed.

Can we use dose administration aids?

Yes. Tick the times each medicine is packed at — Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner or Bedtime, as the pharmacy's pack sheet lists them — and on the shift the worker records a pack time once, which writes an entry for every medicine packed then. When outcomes differ, the worker records those medicines one by one.

Guides for this

Read the rule behind it.

See eMAR-lite medication recording on a live instance.

Try the NDIS demo with a time-boxed pass, or book a walkthrough and we'll show you this part of Corella in your own words.

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