Medication administration is one of the highest-risk activities in disability and aged care support. Yet many NDIS and aged care organisations still rely on paper Medication Administration Records (MARs): handwritten sheets that are difficult to audit, easy to lose, and impossible to monitor in real time. CareIQ's digital MAR replaces paper records entirely with a structured, auditable system that gives clinical managers visibility they could never have with paper.
Each participant in CareIQ can have a medication list managed by authorised staff. Medications are recorded with the drug name, dosage, frequency, and route of administration. Support workers who are authorised to administer medications see each participant's medication list when they open the participant's profile during a shift. When a medication is administered, the worker records the administration in CareIQ — selecting the medication, confirming the dose, and recording the time. The system stamps the record with the worker's identity, the timestamp, and the participant's current details. If the participant refused a medication, that is also recorded with the refusal reason — blank entries are eliminated.
CareIQ calculates medication compliance rates for each participant based on the ratio of administered doses to scheduled doses over a selected period. A participant with a compliance rate below a configurable threshold triggers an alert for clinical staff to investigate. Missed dose patterns are immediately visible when a manager reviews the MAR. This kind of pattern visibility is clinically significant — a participant who is consistently refusing a specific medication may be experiencing side effects or making an informed decision that needs to be discussed with their GP.
The NDIS Practice Standards include specific requirements for medication management under the High Intensity Daily Activities support category. CareIQ's digital MAR addresses all three requirements: every administration is timestamped and attributed to a named worker, creating an unbroken audit trail; worker qualification records include medication administration certificates with expiry alerts and rostering blocks ensuring only trained workers are assigned to medication-involved shifts; and the compliance tracking and alert system demonstrates a systematic approach to identifying and responding to missed doses and refusals.
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