Chinese Medicines

There are many varieties of Chinese medicines (CMs) (中藥), and each CMs has a different scope of application. The properties and effects of CMs can be distinguished from three aspects: the four nature and five flavors (四氣五味), the accordance with meridians (歸經) and the tendency of the CMs. The four nature and five flavors refer to the properties and taste of drugs. The four nature refers to cold (寒), hot (熱), warm(溫), and cool (涼); the five flavors refer to spicy (辛), sweet (甘), sour (酸), bitter (苦) and salty (鹹). Accordance with meridians (歸經) refers to the pertinence of CMs on certain Zang-fu (臟腑) and meridians of human body. CMs act inside the human body in accordance with four tendencies, namely ascending (升), descending (降), floating (浮), sinking(沉). The decision on clinical application of each CMs is made by considering the nature, flavors, accordance with meridians and the tendency of acting of the medicine.

CMs plays an important role in supporting high quality Chinese medicine (CM) (中醫) service with efficacy and safety. Being the flagship CM institution, the CM Pharmacy of The Chinese Medicine Hospital of Hong Kong (CMHHK) will be the largest in scale and the most comprehensive in functions to serve as a demonstrative unit to the industry and as an education and training platform for CM and CMs professionals and students. Based on the estimated patient attendance, the CM Pharmacy may have to handle over a thousand of prescriptions per day.

Forms of CMs to be provided in the CMHHK:

(1)	Processed herbal medicines (中藥飲片)
(2)	CMs granules (中藥顆粒)
(3)	Proprietary CMs (中成藥)
(4)	Decocted medicines (代煎中藥)
(5)	CMs compounded preparation (中藥製劑)

Learn more about the Key Design Concepts of the CMHHK.

 

Pharmacy

The Pharmacy department in the CMHHK will centrally coordinate all matters pertaining to CMs, drugs and pharmaceutical products to ensure patient safety, effective clinical outcomes and quality patient services. A wide range of smart technologies such as Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), labelling system and smart drug cabinets will be adopted in the Pharmacy department.

The CMHHK Pharmacy services will be provided together by a CM Pharmacy (中藥部) and a western medicine (WM) Pharmacy (西藥部). They are going to provide pharmaceutical support to the following services:

(1)	250-bed inpatient services;
(2)	90-bed day-patient services;
(3)	40-bed paediatric services;
(4)	20-bed Clinical Trial & Research Centre; and
(5)	Estimated 1,000 - 1,200 outpatient attendance per day.

The CM Pharmacy will be responsible for dispensing and distributing herbal medicines, herbal granules, proprietary CMs, and preparing decocted medications and compounded medications as per CM practitioner’s prescription. The WM Pharmacy will be responsible for dispensing drugs in different preparations and formats, and other related pharmaceutical products. The operation of the two pharmacies will adhere to the requirements of various Ordinance and regulations, policies, and Code of Practice laid down by the Government.

As the service scope, operation mode, technology adoption and service demand of the CMHHK will be on an evolving path, a flexible architecture concept will be adopted for the CM Pharmacy to allow easy physical adjustments.

The Pharmacy department will also support education, training and research of the CMHHK. The CM decoction and compounding facilities of the CM Pharmacy will serve as training venues for CM practitioners and staff of CM pharmacy to learn about the traditional methods and techniques of preparing CMs.