Cooperation Between Hospital Pharmacy Department and Insurance Pharmacy in Outpatient Chemotherapy

Abstract

  Recently, the diversification of chemotherapy has brought about an increase in the number of outpatients who receive prescription drugs at insurance pharmacies after the intravenous infusion of anticancer agents at hospitals. The problem is that insurance pharmacies do not have ample knowledge of treatment plans and disease stages, and the presence or absence of cancer notification. Moreover, medication regimens, including washout, periods, have become so complicated that patient compliance rates have shown a tendency to decline gradually.
  Such being the circumstances, we have come to think that it would be better to enter into partnership with the dispensary of Senboku Kumiai General Hospital for sharing information in order to give the patients more beneficial medication instructions.
  For a start, we met with the hospital pharmacists, exchanged necessary information and ideas, got acquainted with chemotherapy regimens, and shared the tools of medication teaching. Through the participation in the guidance given by hospital pharmacists to outpatients who began to receive chemotherapy, and lectures on chemotherapy and medication by physicians and hospital pharmacists of the general hospital, we have become able to offer more appropriate counsel to the outpatients. Furthermore, we created a channel between the dispensary and Senboku Chozai Pharmacy for feedback and for asking questions about not only the conditions of the patients but also the presence or absence of cancer notification.
  We believe that our efforts have contributed toward increasing the safety and efficacy of chemotherapy.