TITLE:
A Survey of Community Pharmacists about Work-Related Issues, How they Solve them, and who they Consult with to Solve them: Comparison of Results from the Hokkaido Area vs. a Nationwide Survey
AUTHORS:
Sumiyo Umeda, Hitomi Yanaguimoto, Seiichi Furuta, Nahoko Kurosawa
KEYWORDS:
Drug Informatics, Pharmacy, Drug Information Retrieval, Hokkaido, Japan
JOURNAL NAME:
Pharmacology & Pharmacy,
Vol.9 No.10,
October
30,
2018
ABSTRACT: We surveyed the drug information retrieval practices
among community pharmacists in more rural Hokkaido and in entire Japan in order
to explore local characteristics of work-related issues, how community pharmacists access information to address such issues, and with whom they consult to
solve them. Based on the findings, we propose a strategy for improvements in similar support systems. The percentage of respondents who had experience with home care services was significantly
lower in the Hokkaido group (56.0% of 207) than in the nationwide group (70.0%
of 250), as was the percentage of respondents who consulted the pharmacist association and branch board
(13.0% and 20.4%, respectively). The Hokkaido group also made significantly
less use of websites such as d.m3.com and e.CareNet.com. The results of this
survey thus indicate that the drug information retrieval in the Hokkaido group
had a low implementation rate of home care services. In addition, there were
low levels of utilization of the local pharmacist association, and low
utilization of the websites d.m3.com and e.CareNet.com. To enhance the Hokkaido
community-based integrated care system (and ones like it), we propose that it
is necessary to: 1) support activities of local pharmacist associations, and 2)
promote proactive implementation of drug information retrieval through
education.