Research on the Content of Information Provided by Cancer Treatment Base Hospitals to Community Pharmacies in Hospital-Pharmacy Collaboration for Outpatient Chemotherapy

Abstract

In recent years, outpatient chemotherapy has become the mainstream of cancer treatment, and the role played by community pharmacies is becoming increasingly important. In this research, we surveyed the contents of the websites of base hospitals for cancer treatment in order to understand the current status of information that can be easily obtained at any pharmacy as a way of implementing hospital-pharmacy collaboration in outpatient chemotherapy. We surveyed the availability of 20 items of information on hospital-pharmacy collaboration in outpatient chemotherapy on the websites of 51 Prefectural Base Hospitals for cancer treatment and 275 regional base hospitals for cancer treatment as of the end of February 2021. We selected 5 from 20 items as main evaluation, and calculated correlation coefficients from rate of hospitals providing information in Prefectural and Regional Base hospitals. In the result, there was a strong correlation between the content of information provision between the two groups. We conducted a Wilcoxon rank-sum test based on rate of hospitals providing information at Prefectural and Regional Base hospitals in the same prefecture. There was significant correspondence in three items: “Route of administration”, “Information on supportive care (e.g., antiemetics, hydration)”, and “Information on concomitant therapy (e.g., radiation)”. In this research, it was founded that hospitals have a certain unified view on the items that are important to provide information to community pharmacies. On the other hand, there is no significant correspondence in the status of information provision between prefectures and regional base hospitals within the same prefecture. These results suggest that community pharmacists need to respond individually to each hospital, which may inhibit hospital-pharmacy collaboration.