Abstract
In November 2014, Hitachi, Ltd. Hitachinaka General Hospital started protocols that partly allowed community pharmacists to dispense medicines, without obtaining permission from physicians who made prescriptions, in order to alleviate the burden on community pharmacists, and to maintain high-quality pharmacotherapy management. However, the utilization frequency of one protocol, the protocol on adjusting the amount of medications in accordance with unused medications, called the“unused medications protocol,” which contained regulations on adjustment days, was relatively low. Based on this result, we removed regulations on adjustment days, and also revised the protocol, which enabled physicians and community pharmacists to share information on unused medications. During one year, the term before and after the revision, the utilization rate of unused medications protocol, in which it had been necessary to consult physicians, increased from 4.5％ to 92.4％. Also, the number of the utilization of unused medications protocol that included asking permission per month increased 1.5 times. The medication cost, which was reduced by the revision of unused medications protocol, was about 12 million yen / year, by the calculation of the reduced amount of medications and the price of each medicine. It is concluded that the renewed unused medications protocol established a cooperative system between physicians and community pharmacists, and it has led to the realization of new medical support in a team to approach unused medications in the community.
