著者

吉田 啓太郎

出版者

九州保健福祉大学

巻号頁・発行日

2016-09-23

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In 2012, the Medical Care Plans were revised, following which the Ministry ofHealth, Labour and Welfare has promoted home care and the Integrated Community Care System. The Medical Care Plans, allow pharmacies to take an organizational role in home care equivalent to that of hospitals and clinics. However, according to Central Social Insurance Medical Council, only 11.7% of pharmacies nationwide implemented home care in 2015, making it difficult to say pharmacy home care is prevalent nationally. Therefore, I have researched what legal reform is necessary for the advancement of pharmacy home care. Moreover, I considered the use of current legal system to promote participation home care.Based on my survey, a lack of pharmacy-based pharmacists to cope with home care related workload was identified as a cause for prevalence of pharmacy home care in 2014; this is likely to continue until 2035. By judicial precedent and law structure, pharmacies cannot be established as a Medical Corporation ensuring stability of medical care, even though pharmacy home care is a largely common medical service; in other words, the present legal system does not encourage home care.According to Onda et al. (2016), the outreach of pharmacy home care depends on the number of prescriptions per pharmacist. Moreover, creating sustainability and securing human resources are part of medical law reform. Therefore, I suggest revising the ministerial order establishing the framework for operations conducted by pharmacies, and which bases pharmacist numbers on prescriptions as workload. Accordingly, the Medical Care Plans and Integrated Community Care System of the ministerial order will facilitate the nationwide expansion of pharmacy home care. Moreover, I found two current legal systems that promote home care in terms of Japanese medical insurance system. I considered using two systems is the key to promoting home care under the current legal system.