Communication Form of Cooperation between Hospitals and Health Insurance Pharmacies Designed Based on the Results of a Questionnaire Survey on Cancer Patients and Community Pharmacists

Abstract

The rate of extramural prescription in Nagoya Memorial Hospital is approximately 90％ and most of our patients receive medicine in health insurance pharmacies. However, there are several problems in the prescriptions for outpatients; the patients are sometimes unable to obtain the prescribed drugs because they are out of stock in the family pharmacy. In addition, community pharmacists find it difficult to instruct individual patients when obtaining information only through externally dispensed prescriptions. To improve the cooperation between our hospital and community pharmacists, we performed a questionnaire survey on the present status of cancer patients and then another on pharmacists working in health insurance pharmacies. The first series of questionnaires showed that all patients had a family pharmacy and 92％ of them agreed to give their information to it. In addition, the patients being prescribed oral cancer drugs would more often consult the community pharmacists, compared to those receiving parenteral chemotherapeutic agents. The second series of questionnaires for community pharmacists revealed that around 90％ were interested in obtaining more information from their hospital, although less than one fifth of them could talk to patients undergoing cancer treatment. Based on these results, we discussed with community pharmacists and designed a communication form of cooperation. The form of cooperation was sent from the hospital to the health insurance pharmacy by FAX, after obtaining informed consent from the patients. This form is to be evaluated from the viewpoints of patients and community pharmacists and then further improved.

Skin disorder management in oral anticancer drugs by collaboration of hospital pharmacists and community pharmacists

“…Benefits of economic and prescription optimization from PBPM in accordance with community pharmacy and hospital pharmacy have also been reported [8]. Though similar efforts have been reported for chemotherapy, there are no reports that indicate their clinical benefits clearly [9][10][11][12]. A past research study reported that more than half of community pharmacists rarely feedback patient information to hospitals, and 14.3% community pharmacists rarely performed tasks such as continuous side effect monitoring and patient guidance, including supportive care [13].…”

Bidirectional information sharing between Nagoya Memorial Hospital and health insurance pharmacies using a communication sheet for pharmaceutical cooperation

“…Currently, one-half of Japanese people have cancer, and cancer treatments are increasingly being provided in outpatient settings [19]. However, due to the lack of the stock of medications, some cancer patients with externally prescribed medications cannot receive these medications at health insurance pharmacies [17]. In addition, community pharmacists often have trouble communicating with cancer patients, mainly because they lack patients' information, including the exact diagnosis, stage of malignant disease, treatment policy, and the status of informed consent from the patients in general [20].…”

“…We collaborated with the regional dental associations [21,22]and the facilities of palliative care and home care [23]using the information sheet to increase the quality of life in cancer patients. This multi-professional collaboration consequently led to repeated discussions with the regional pharmaceutical associations near our hospital (Tenpaku-ku, Midori-ku, and Nisshin-shi), during which we decided to create a communication sheet for pharmaceutical cooperation [17]. Based on the results of the questionnaire survey conducted after the use of the communication sheet, the original communication sheet was modified, and a unified reply form was added.…”

“…Based on the results of the questionnaire survey conducted after the use of the communication sheet, the original communication sheet was modified, and a unified reply form was added. We then reassessed the quality of communication between patients and pharmacists before and after revision of the communication sheet, which suggested that our system of pharmaceutical cooperation helped community pharmacists provide cancer patients with an appropriate instructions [17,24].…”

“…With the aim to enhance the quality of patient support, a questionnaire survey was administered to both cancer patients and community pharmacists in 2014 and demonstrated that all patients had a family pharmacy and that the patients receiving oral cancer medications should consult with community pharmacists more often than those receiving parenteral chemotherapeutic agents [17]. Only 10% of pharmacists often discussed cancer treatments with patients at the window, and almost all pharmacists were eager to obtain more concrete information on cancer patients from the hospitals.…”