Introduction: This study assessed the changes in outpatient visits during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: Subjects were patients who visited the outpatient clinic of the Family Medicine Centre at Kanai Hospital between April and May in 2019 and 2020. We compared the number of outpatients, their age, and their reasons for encounter (RFEs) classified according to the International Classification of Primary Care, 2nd Edition between 2019 and 2020.

Results: A total of 1159 patients in 2019 and 859 patients in 2020 were evaluated. There were 553 male patients in 2019 and 452 in 2020 (P =0.029). The mean age of the patients was 48.4 years in 2019 and 52.4 years in 2020 (P =0.010). The mean number of patients per day was 25.2 in 2019 and 17.9 in 2020 (P < 0.001), with a significant reduction in patients aged 0-4 years in 2020 relative to 2019 (3.64 in 2019 vs.1.02 in 2020; P < 0.001). On evaluation of RFEs classified by organic system, the proportion of respiratory RFEs decreased from 45.3% in 2019 to 31.6% in 2020 (P =0.026), and gastrointestinal RFEs decreased from 17.9% to 5.3% (P =0.003) among children. Among adults, the proportion of respiratory RFEs decreased from 22.6% in 2019 to 15.6% in 2020 (P < 0.001) and skin RFEs decreased from 20.1% in 2019 to 15.3% in 2020 (P =0.011).

Conclusion: The number of outpatients decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were differences in the proportion of RFEs between the two periods.

Introduction: We performed a scoping review of after-hours primary care to examine delivery models of after-hours house calls and their use, and conducted outcome evaluation studies of after-hours house calls.

Methods: PubMed, Embase, Google Scholar, and Ichuu-shi were used to identify studies published between 2000 and 2021. We selected studies that explained the after-hours house call system or studies that included outcome evaluation.

Results: We included 109 studies. The system of after-hours house calls varied in each country. There were one to four research reports on the actual situation of after-hours house calls in each country; however, there were no nationwide reports in Japan. After-hours house calls accounted for the lowest proportion of after-hours care. Only observational studies were found for the impacts of satisfaction and utilization of emergency department services as outcome evaluations for after-hours house-call services.

Conclusion: Further research on the after-hours care system is needed, and further discussions based on the results of the study are required.

Introduction: We investigated the feasibility and validity of developing a system to monitor prescriptions prescribed by physicians for the promotion of appropriate antimicrobial use in clinics.

Methods: The names of injuries and diseases and prescribed drugs stored in the receipt computers of six clinics were output and anonymized. Antimicrobial prescriptions for acute respiratory tract infections and acute diarrhea were compiled and evaluated.

Results: Anonymized data were available for all six clinics. We were able to extract data and aggregate prescriptions by linking the name of the injuries and diseases to the prescribed drug.

Conclusions: We consider it possible to establish antimicrobial stewardship in clinics through antimicrobial prescription monitoring and to develop such a system. On the other hand, there are multiple ways of naming injuries and diseases, and further investigation is needed to define the names of injuries and diseases to be extracted.

The case was a 77-year-old man. He had dizziness and dysphagia for 2 years, and underwent detailed screening at the internal medicine department for general malaise and bloody sputum. He was hospitalized for aspiration pneumonia due to dysphagia of unknown origin. This time, he visited a local doctor with palpitations and shortness of breath. Echocardiography indicated a left atrial tumor involving the mitral valve and arrhythmia. Emergency surgery was performed to remove the left atrial myxoma and close the patch at our hospital's cardiovascular surgery department. After the excision, swallowing function was restored, and the patient was diagnosed with postoperative Ortner's syndrome. We report a case where echocardiography was considered important as a detailed investigation of the cause of swallowing dysfunction and dizziness.