Investigation of the Current Status of Outpatient Information That Community Pharmacists Would Like to Receive from Hospitals

Abstract

In recent years, patients have been encouraged to use their family pharmacy for prescriptions rather than a pharmacy near the hospital. Therefore, community pharmacists receive more prescriptions for a large number of diseases. Pharmacists are required to follow up on a patient’s condition after they have received their medication. As a result, the need for information on outpatients by community pharmacists is increasing. The purpose of this survey was to investigate the content of outpatient information required by community pharmacists and the means of sharing this information. A total of 68.6% of community pharmacists considered the sharing of outpatient information to be beneficial. Community pharmacists regarded information on patients, such as “disease name” and “current medical condition”, to be the most useful, while other information on prescriptions, including “reason for prescription change” and “prescription intent”, was also listed as useful. Community pharmacists wanted to continue using paper forms, such as prescriptions, for information sharing. Information on outpatients is expected to be shared in the future, and if information on outpatients that community pharmacists consider to be useful is shared, the contribution of community pharmacists to the drug treatment of outpatients will increase.