CRIS: a clinical research information system for substance abuse services at VA medical center.

The clinical research information system (CRIS) at the San Francisco VA Medical Center was designed to provide information on use of services and treatment outcomes and to support the clinics for treatment of substance abuse. This system fills a niche often neglected by centralized hospital systems, which are usually designed to satisfy administrative demands for automated fiscal functions, but not designed to support patient care. Full integration with our central computing system remains a goal; for now, CRIS operates as a self-contained clinical system with several workstations linked by a telephone network.