Abstract
Household medicine lease (HML) industry originated far back in the Edo period (17C–19C), whenitwas promoted by the local fiefdom government to revitalize the economy. Accumulation of wealth acquired from everywhere outside the region has culminated in the build-up of the present-day industrial cluster in Toyama, largest in the whole area facing the Sea of Japan. Today an adaptation of the quasi-CRM (Customer Relationship Management) business model of the HML system has proved to be a success in Mongolia. This fact seems to offer us some clues for solving many problems that health care and medical services in Japan are riddled with. In this paper, focusing on the common CSFs (critical success factors) behind Mongolians' and our use of the HML system, we will analyze these factors from the perspective of CRM. We will then clarify the following: 1) the usefulness of the business model for ensuring primary health care for people in developing countries as a social business, 2) the usefulness in our ubiquitous network society of applying ICT to the HML system, 3) what contributions the use of the system can make toward improving the quality of our everyday health care and medical services in our prominently aging society, and we will also suggest 4) the importance of elevating ‘individual self-medication’ to ‘community-based self-medication.’
