Abstract
The numbers of coronavirus (COVID-19) infections have exploded in Japan since mid-March 2020, making it difficult for outpatients to visit our hospital (Juntendo Hospital in Tokyo). For this reason, the hospital expanded the use of online medical care in May 2020 to ensure uninterrupted medication treatment for outpatients who could not attend in person. Although the number of outpatient visits in person was reduced, patients were still able to consult our clinic and receive their medication through online medical care via audio–video systems. This paper discusses the background to this situation, as well as the guidelines, the medical fee system, and the advantages and disadvantages of online medical care in Japan.
© 2023 The Juntendo Medical Society. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original source is properly credited.
