Users' perspectives of hospital pharmacy computer systems.

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Pharmacy Practice
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Hospital pharmacists' expectations of computer systems are crucial for effective technology adoption.
• Understanding user characteristics is key to tailoring pharmaceutical information systems.
• Previous research has not fully explored specific feature preferences in hospital pharmacy computing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether user characteristics influence hospital pharmacists' expectations of computer systems.
• To identify the most and least desired features in computer systems for hospital pharmacy operations.
• To inform the development of user-centered pharmacy information technology.

Main Methods:

• A survey questionnaire was mailed to 200 randomly selected hospital pharmacists.
• Data collected included demographic information, general systems usage, and preferences across 10 feature categories.
• A response rate of 55.5% (111 surveys returned) was achieved.

Main Results:

• User characteristics did not appear to influence pharmacists' expectations of computer systems.
• The majority of respondents (87.4%) reported moderate experience with computer systems.
• Minicomputers were the preferred hardware, and mainframe-shared systems were most commonly used.
• The most important areas for computer applications were i.v. admixture, inpatient drug distribution, and clinical functions.

Conclusions:

• Pharmacist user characteristics do not significantly shape expectations for pharmacy computer systems.
• Prioritizing i.v. admixture, inpatient drug distribution, and clinical functions in system design is essential.
• Future pharmacy computer system development should focus on these high-priority functional areas.