Background The Hospital Pharmacy of Zealand Region receives requests about medicines from physicians, nurses and top-up pharmaconomists (pharmacy assistants). The clinical pharmacist is responsible for providing answers. In 2009 the three former Hospital Pharmacies in Zealand Region became one Hospital Pharmacy. A regional electronic tool with the possibility of sharing knowledge among all the clinical pharmacists and documenting the requests was required.

Purpose To create a regional electronic tool to:

• share knowledge easily

• document the number, type of requests and the pharmacist's answers

• search in previous requests and answers

Materials and methods Microsoft Outlook has a tool called ‘Journal’. The clinical pharmacists record and categorise the requests and answers in a journal. Date, profession and working place of the questioner is recorded in the journal as well as the background references used for the answers.

Results The Microsoft Outlook ‘Journal’ is a useful regional tool that makes it easier to share knowledge and to document the number of requests received and answers provided to the questioner. In the first six months of 2010 a total of 973 requests were recorded. In the first six months of 2011 a total of 1213 requests were recorded. Most of the requests dealt with drug storage, stability, administration of drugs, mixing drugs and questions regarding prescriptions for drugs not recommended by the Regional Drug and Therapeutics Committee.

Conclusions The use of this electronic tool to record the requests has relieved the daily work for the pharmacists in Zealand Region. The Journal has shown to be an effective and easy regional electronic tool for the clinical pharmacists in Zealand Region, to document information about the medicine, share knowledge about medicines and to provide answers in a more uniform way.