Assessing capabilities of Pharmacy Information System in Teaching Hospitals of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences

Introduction: : Pharmacy information system is one of the pillars of essential health system which manage information related to drug administration for the patient care. As for the importance of system, the aim of this study is to assess of capabilities pharmacy information system of teaching hospitals in Mashhad.

Methods: This descriptive-sectional study was conducted on the Pharmacy Information System of teaching hospitals of Mashhad University in 2013. Through literature review, using health information system evaluation indicators of Ministry of Health and Medical Education (3/4ed) and surveying final user opinion; necessary features of Pharmacy Information System was specified. According to the determined features in checklist format, teaching hospitals of Mashhad University was assessed. Descriptive statistics were used to analysis the data.

Results: The result showed that Pharmacy information system had 71.11% of medication management capabilities, 75% of financial management capabilities and 20% of management of medication processes capabilities. In totally, 61.11% of the desired capabilities existed in the hospital's pharmacy information system which the most related to financial management capabilities and the least related to medication management capabilities.

Conclusion: At the moment, Mashhad University teaching hospitals were entered incompletely medication information against financial information. Therefor this system couldn’t play effective role in patient safety, increasing quality of care and deceasing drug consumption and also reducing medication errors.