Abstract
The government is promoting social support for patients with cancer. Consequently, the use of outpatient chemotherapy is increasing. Outpatient cancer chemotherapy requires monitoring and follow-up for adverse events after patient discharge, making medical institution–local pharmacy collaboration crucial.
This study examined the reporting status of four types of medical fee notification items related to outpatient cancer chemotherapy to bolster regional medical collaboration. A total 33.7％ of hospitals nationwide reported outpatient tumor chemotherapy treatment fees. Collaboration enhancement and specific drug management guidance additions were 16.5％ and 13.6％, respectively. Among the number of medical institutions in each secondary medical area, the percentage of hospitals with collaboration enhancement addition is 64.0％ in large cities, 56.8％ in regional cities, and 48.8％ in depopulated areas, indicating that hospitals with collaboration enhancement addition are in densely populated areas. In areas with low population density, secondary medical care areas did not have outpatient tumor chemotherapy treatment fees or collaboration enhancement hospitals. Compared with outpatient tumor chemotherapy treatment fee hospitals that are yet to receive collaboration enhancement, the number of working pharmacists and registered dietitians was considerably higher in hospitals that received collaboration enhancement. Even in the specified drug management guidance addition 2, the number of pharmacists working in registered pharmacies was notably higher than that in unregistered pharmacies.
In the future, the use of information and communication technologies, such as web conferencing systems, and nonpharmacists and the mechanization of dispensing operations will effectively advance regional medical collaboration systems for outpatient cancer chemotherapy.
