APPLICATIONS OF COMPUTER IN

HOSPITAL PHARMACY
 COMPUTER SYSTEM IN HOSPITAL PHARMACY

• The field of pharmacy has immensely benefited

using computer and will continue to benefit as the
pharmacist’s gain more familiarity with computers. The
complete field of pharmacy requires computers. Some
of the important areas where computer are useful are
new drug discovery , drug design , analysis,
manufacturing of drug and hospital pharmacy. Other
than these, computer helps Pharmacists collaborate
with other professionals , which is very essential in
today’s research work. It also provides solutions for
time consuming manual tasks.

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Use Of Computer In Hospital Pharmacy

In receiving and allotment of drug

Storing the details of every individual
Professional supplies
Records of dispensed drugs to inpatient and outpatient
Information of patient's records
Patient monitoring (blood pressure, pulse rate, temperature)

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Patterns of computer use in hospital pharmacy

For years now, whenever it has been suggested that pharmacy could
do more to improve patient outcomes, reduce General Practitioners
(GP) workloads and make a bigger contribution to the health care
system, one of the barriers that invariably gets mentioned is IT and, in,
access to patient records.

Recent trends suggest that pharmacy professionals are starting to utilize

the benefits of computer system and databases.
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 Patient record database management
Computer databases for information about medicines, and medical
treatment in general, are used within pharmacies. These database
systems allow pharmacy staff to find out information about any potential
conflicts or health –care problems in a prescribed treatment, as well as
information about the detail of any medicine the pharmacist need to
know more about.
This information may include:
Ingredients and potential effects as well as research and scientific data
The excess of patient record data base also proved beneficial in
identifying prescribing errors and the pharmacist feel they had been able
to reduce the risk of patient's harm. The pharmacies would mostly be
excessing patients record to assist in the provision of emergency supplies
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to confirm what a patient was taking and at what dose.
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Example of Computerized Prescriber Order Entry (CPOE) System

 SOME OF THE ADVANTAGES OF PATIENT
RECORD DATABASE SYSTEM

●. Pharmacies review the data with several key Pharmacy related aspects in mind ; this
will permit concise data collection while providing the Pharmacist with adequate
information to develop recommendations to optimize Pharmacotherapy.
●. Clinical Pharmacist may dive right into the chart to seek out antibiotic order and
laboratory data for serum drug concentrations and renal functions assessments,
whereas a cardiology Pharmacy specialist may initially search for blood pressure values.
●. Electronic medical records are stored within secured databases where they can never
be lost or misfield.
●. Efficient regulations of medications can improve patient's quality of care and helps
prevent dangerous and avoidable oversights.
●. The Pharmacist may find data lacking in some areas which may require clarification
via additional patient interviewing.
●. The Pharmacist can identify pertinent positive and negative components that are key
to development of an assessment and plan.
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MEDICATION ORDER ENTRY
Within Pharmacy, prescription
processing is one of the main activities
performed on daily
basis and computer plays vital role in
making this process more efficient and
reliable.
Computer System, on the other hand is
helpful on the other grounds such as
Customer Service Side of Pharmacy
Operation and as well as Dispensing
aspects. Pharmacy computers also
handles customer service activities such
as sales and cash handling within the 8

retail operation.
WHAT IS MEDICATION ORDER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

It is an electronic based automated order management and robust clinical

interventions tracking tool that enables Hospital Pharmacies to identify
key, safety, quality, productivity and clinical improvements.
For Hospitals implementing Computerized Medication Order
Management Systems, Medication Order Management System is
designed to supplement a Medication Order Management systems
environment so that hospitals truly benefits from a complete affordable
order entry solution.

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HOW MEDICATION ORDER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IS
HELPFUL ?

It is beneficial in number of ways such as :

■. Improves operational efficiency and patient safety.

■. Improves productivity, quality and nursing satisfaction
with advanced real-time productivity, clinical and quality
reporting metrics.
■. Complement Medication Order Management System
technology, utilizing flexible contract and billing terms to
shift pricing models
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DRUG LABEL

Computer generates
medication container 1 : Patient medication
labels or reports in the profile.
following details:

2: Fill list (For preparing 3: Drug order renewal

individual doses in list for prescriber.
medication charts).

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 4: MEDICATION ADMINISTRATION (A): NAME (B): BED NUMBER (C): DIAGNOSIS (D): GENDER
RECORD (MAR): HELPFUL FOR
NURSES, SINCE THEY PROVIDED
WITH A DOCUMENT ,THAT HELPS IN
GIVING DRUGS TO PATIENT EASILY
OR CONVENIENTLY. DETAILS IN MAR
INCLUDE:

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(E): Weight (F): Height

(H): Medication details:

(G): Allergies schedule of dosage,
drug name, strength.

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DRUG LIST

Some computerized medication order management

systems list drug alphabetically. Most system have
support for both browsing (Example: picking a drug
from a list) alphabetically and searching for a specific
drug by entering a search string; however, the latter
method is by far for the more common paradigm.
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IV SOLUTIONS AND ADMINISTRATIONS
• Usually prepared separately from other medication order
• Needs special computer records
• Orders for IV solution contain the following detail
1. Patients information
2. Start and stop date
3. Medication order information
4. Rate of administration
5. Order status

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 Computer calculate the required volume of IV solution
component and its flow rate
 Computer checks the incompatibilities and interaction with
other medications
 Current IV medication is listed on a separate section of MAR
 Computer generate information about expiry dates of
medication to facilitate its renewal accordingly
 The combination of barcode verification technology with an
eMAR was implemented to further reduce admonish errors
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 The eMAR system electronically receives patient’s profile
information from the Pharmacy system. This process eliminates
the needs for nurses or unit secretaries to transcribe physician
orders, therefore potentially reducing transcription errors.
 Bar code / eMAR allows real time confirmation of patient
identifications, medications, dose and time of administration
automatically causing the scanned medication against the patients
eMAR profile
 By the help of this computerized system, IV solution and
administers can be rationally prescribed and administered.
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Patient medication profile

 A patient medication profile is a comprehensive summary of all

regular
 Medications taken by a patient include prescription, over the counter
and complementary medicines. Current medication profiles may vary
in format and the level and type of information provided.
 The aim of the patient medication profiling program is to reduce the
risk of medication related adverse events by assisting people to
understand and manage their medication including prescription,
over-the-counter and complimentary medicines
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The provision of a medication profile to patients as
expected to improve their awareness of their medication
(i.e. identifying them, understanding why they have been
prescribed and when and how they should be taken). The
medication profile will also give patient confidence in self
medication management and support communication
between patient and other health professional, especially
on admittance to hospitals or aged care home.

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