PSYCHOMS®, An electronic nursing management system to facilitate interdisciplinary communication and improve patient outcomes in psychiatric hospitals

The purpose of this article is to introduce PSYCHOMS® (Psychiatric Outcome Management System, registered trademark, Tanioka et al.), an electronic nursing management system to facilitate interdisciplinary communication and improve patient outcomes in psychiatric hospitals and report on the agenda for commercialization of the PSYCHOMS® system. Our team has been developing the PSYCHOMS® system since 2006. This system has four major components: (1) Clinical pathway and variance analysis system, (2) Nursing manager and staff´s daily recording system, (3) nursing care planning system, and (4) nursing management support system. Any interdisciplinary team member using this system can access the patient´s information. Therefore, each interdisciplinary team member´s expertise can be maximally utilized to achieve improved patient outcomes. It was necessary to conduct a survey on what standard items were common in different hospitals to allow for the development of PSYCHOMS®´s data base. In order to improve psychiatric care, it is necessary to develop a database that shares common language with all psychiatric hospitals. This manuscript reports on the functions and agenda for the PSYCHOMS® system.