2022 Volume 27 Issue 1 Pages 1-6
To provide for the progressively aging society in Japan, a governmental act promoting reorganization to establish sustainable social security systems has been enforced since April 2017. Long before this act was promulgated, the number of individuals transported by ambulance had been gradually increasing, and in recent years the elderly (aged ≥ 75 years) have accounted for approx. 40% of all individuals taken to a hospital by ambulance in Japan. It is likely that most of those individuals are receiving long‒term nursing care in their own homes or institutions and may request that an ambulance be dispatched due to aspiration pneumonia, exacerbation of chronic heart failure and so on, resulting in repeated uses of ambulance services. In light of this, the role of the country’s emergency medical service system could be regarded as an integral factor in the process of long‒term nursing care.
In disasters such as floods and earthquakes, the proportion of victims aged ≥ 65 years among the dead or missing has been rising year by year. This rate of increase is far higher than the increase in the aging of Japan’s rapidly graying society. Strategies for dealing with natural disasters in our country thus ought to focus on senior evacuees who are already receiving or need daily nursing care and social support. The relatively large‒scale regional core hospitals in Japan should take the initiative in devising and carrying out plans for healthcare disaster resilience in their respective medical care zones. The accreditation of the hospitals for this purpose by the Joint Commission will provide a powerful incentive to contribute to regional healthcare coalitions and to regional healthcare disaster resilience. The emergency medical function — especially in large hospitals — will be a great help to establishing the framework of healthcare disaster resilience throughout Japan.
