Medical institutions currently face serious problems. The purpose of this thesis is to propose a method by which medical institutions may overcome some of these problems. The method we propose is to introduce the Toyota system into medical institution management. A growing number of attempts have been made in the United States to introduce the Toyota system into hospitals. Some notable examples include the Swedish Medical Center and the Virginia Mason Medical Center. In addition, Spear(2005) has authored a thesis on case study of introduction of the Toyota system in hospitals in the United States.
This thesis discusses the introduction of the Toyota system into medical institution management. For the purpose of discussion, the thesis studies how the system has been introduced in Kariya Toyota General Hospital. The thesis concludes that three conditions are necessary for the introduction of the Toyota system: cost management, process management, and "Kaizen." Cost management consists of two factors: measurement of the cost of work and removal of "Muda." Process management refers to investigation and analysis of the elements of work. Kaizen refers to discovery of "Muda" by the workers. These three conditions are the key to more efficient and effective management of medical institutions.

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In the pharmaceutical industry, the number of strategic alliances between companies is increasing. However, the management of strategic alliances is difficult because different organizations are independent of one another. The management of international strategic alliances is especially difficult because the culture, common sense, and the customs between the team members are different. This paper investigates effective management in international strategic alliances.
From the analysis of questionnaires, I found that the members of the Japanese companies desire similarity and the trust to rely on the capabilities of partners from before strategic alliances are made, and that the members of the American companies request opportunities for communications.
The selection of the partners of strategic alliances is important so that the members of the Japanese companies may improve trust and it is important to have communications during strategic alliances so that the members of the American companies may improve trust. Many strategic alliances between these companies don't have 'boundary spanning managers' because the number of organization members is a few in the strategic alliances. As well, it would be good to allow the team leaders of the American companies as boundary spanning managers to exchange communications and information with each other, as they hold high trust. It would also be effective to utilize organization forms where in each member freely has communications centering on the boundary spanning managers.

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The British health care system - the National Health Service (NHS) - was founded in 1948. The NHS received international attention due to its organisation of comprehensive health services including prevention, treatment and rehabilitation ; further, the NHS maintains tax based free services for all people.
Based on a case study on Birmingham from 1948 to 1974 - when the NHS was operated under the initial structure - this article explores the realities of community medicine. Although the NHS undertook the functional differentiation of medical institutions, the structure, which was based on medical systems prior to World War II, consisted of tripartite sections : general practitioners, hospitals and the local health authorities (LHAs). Therefore, the rapid growth in the demand for free medical services and the shortage of medical professionals resulted in operational problems within the NHS. This highlighted the necessity for the promotion of home care and cooperation among these three entities.
Several efforts were observed to have been implemented in Birmingham. At the administrative level, officials were delegated to discuss inter-sectional issues with committees representing other entities. In the clinical fields, some doctors had dual appointments - with a hospital and an LHA ; in this sense, they could easily consider both aspects of a disease : preventive and curative. In addition, health visitors and district nurses were attached to medical institutions in order to promote cooperation between doctors and LHA professionals. The social and economical backgrounds of such types of cooperation will be examined in further studies.

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Purpose :The purpose of this paper is to clarify the factors that affect the general people's exercise habits, moderate drinking and good diet.
Method :The targets were 1,207 persons aged 35 to 59, who were registered with a research company. A questionnaire was sent to them by postal mail to be responded to by themselves. We regressed the presence or absence of preventive health behavior using personal and family attributes.
Result :Respondents with higher recognition of the risk of disease indicated a tendency of not overeating. Those with higher recognition of the importance of health indicated a tendency of moderate drinking, regular meals and not eating between meals. Those with higher recognition of the benefits of preventive health behavior indicated a tendency of having exercise habits, less salt intake and more intake of carotene-rich vegetables. Full-time workers tended not to have exercise habits or a habit of taking in less salt, not overeating, or taking in carotene-rich vegetables. A regular life pattern was found to be closely associated with exercise habits, less salt intake and regular meals. Those with a high level of health-related knowledge had a tendency of moderate drinking, less salt intake and regular meals. Those who mitigated stress through drinking did not tend to have a habit of moderate drinking. Those who enjoyed the support of their family in terms of their diet had a tendency of not overeating.
Conclusion :The results suggested that preventive health behavior could be promoted by taking measures that give considerations to the specific characteristics of each type of preventive health behavior.

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