The pharmacy as part of an integrated hospital information system: a focus on benefits

An integrated hospital information system benefits not only the pharmacy but also each department within a hospital, including the physician and patient. The Composite Health Care System (CHCS) is a fully integrated healthcare information system that has been developed for the Department of Defense's medical treatment facilities. CHCS provides modules for Patient Administration, Patient Appointment Scheduling, Radiology, Laboratory, Pharmacy, and Physician/Nursing Order Entry and Results Retrieval, which serve to integrate inpatient wards, clinical services, administrative departments, and remote outpatient clinics. CHCS provides an integrated patient profile to care givers throughout the medical facility, improving the quality of their clinical decisions. The integrated hospital information system also helps to coordinate the delivery of patient care and automates many interdepartmental transactions, which allows for more efficient use of resources and increases the turnaround time for delivery of services. This article focuses on the system's pharmacy component to demonstrate the benefits realized with an integrated hospital information system.