Objective: When responding to questions regarding drug-drug interaction by the medical staff of our hospital, pharmacists previously collected information using some drug databases from Japan and the United States.  The aim of this study was to construct a search system for interaction information using drug databases from both Japan and the United States for streamlining questions and answers regarding drug-drug interaction.
Methods: Using the drug databases from Japan and the United States, we collected information on the interaction pertaining to drugs prescribed at Kobe University Hospital.  This information was further assessed for consistency.  Furthermore, we constructed an original search system for interaction information for streamlining questions and answers regarding drug-drug interaction.
Results: The difference between information obtained from the databases from Japan and the United States was apparent.  Thus, we concluded that it was necessary to obtain interaction information via a database search that included information from both the countries.  Therefore, our original interaction search system was reconstructed with interaction information collected using databases from both the countries.  We compared the response to questions regarding the previous and present methods using our original search system for interaction information; the time required to obtain the responses was 5.89 and 3.09 min, respectively, and it took lesser time for providing responses than the previous method.
Conclusion: We evaluated the usefulness of the original search system for interaction information.  We found that the original system provides a more rapid response to questions compared with the previous method.  We are considering a further upgrade and update for the original system by adding information on drugs not prescribed by our hospital.