入院日持参薬チェックは医療の安全性に寄与する

持参薬チェック管理薬剤師の役割

抄録

To ensure the proper use of pharmaceutical products, it is important to check outpatient prescriptions brought by patients when they are hospitalized. In recent few years, with the introduction of the Diagnosis Procedure Combination (DPC) into the medical service fee system, patient's hospital days have been reduced. As this makes it necessary to schedule operations soon after admission, it is essential that pharmacists check prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs and supplements brought to hospital by patients as soon as possible after hospitalization. For this purpose, we have established a convenient checking system under which the supervising pharmacist allocates patients to the respective pharmacists in charge of each ward in the morning of the day of admission. Each pharmacist interviews one or two patients to check their medicines between 2 and 5 p.m. when they can fit this in with their normal work. The advantage of this system is that it makes it easier to collect more precise information on patients through interviews and checking their medicines at the bedside. It also enables us to provide better advice to both patients and ward staff. Our system has contributed to raising the safety of patient treatment. Until now, several operations have been suspended because patients were taking anti-coagulation drugs and cases like this show the great importance of checking patient medications before hospitalization. Under the DPC system, the use of outpatient prescriptions during hospitalization has contributed to reducing hospital expenditure and our checking system has helped ensure that this is done safely.