Role of Houetsu Hospital in the regional cooperation

Abstract

Recently, medical service providers have to offer smoother bed management because of social factors associated with the healthcare reform. However, various issues have occurred owing to social backgrounds such as advanced medical technologies and an increase of older inpatients, thus resulting in difficulties in bed management. In order to secure beds for emergency patients, Houetsu Hospital, a secondary emergency hospital with 65 beds, had to shorten the length of stay and closely cooperate with local organizations that support life after discharge. The in-hospital regional medicine cooperation room, which was composed of various professions in charge of different tasks, introduced a meeting to share information about inpatients every day. The staff in this hospital also visited neighboring hospitals and institutions to share information and found a lot of requests for community-wide information sharing. Thus, a community-based cooperative meeting was held. This led to closer cooperation with local institutions and smoother support, which facilitated the discharge of inpatients. In future, it will be important to strengthen a community-based support system that allows residents to live peacefully in a town where they have lived for many years.