Establishment of an Epilepsy Medical Network to Facilitate Cooperation in Community Practice

Abstract

Epilepsy is considered relevant to various medical dimensions, including primary and secondary care for diagnosis and drug treatment, and higher-order medical facilities, i.e., epilepsy centers, for surgical treatment. Cross-organizational and medical cooperation are essential to support patients with different degrees of epilepsy. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare launched a project of regional medical cooperation system and selected 8 local prefectural governments for the practice in 2015. Our medical center has been designated by the Hiroshima prefectural government to implement this project. In addition to ongoing educational and disease awareness activities, we organized a council comprising multiple professionals for community cooperation. We also established a sub-working group with committee members from 9 secondary care hospitals in the different secondary medical areas within Hiroshima prefecture. As a result of these activities, we constructed our own Hiroshima prefecture model of the medical care cooperation system, which has been already implemented. Herein we describe our efforts to increase epilepsy awareness, create a regional workshop for healthcare providers, and establish an epilepsy medical network for community cooperation.