[Construction of a Home-Visiting System as a Family Pharmacy].

"The Vision for Patient-centered Pharmacies," published by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare(MHLW)in October 2015 specifies three functions of family pharmacies, including home medical care. In 1994, home-visits by pharmacists officially began; however, before then, we had already visited patients whose medications and life situations were of concern, at their homes. Based on that experience, as we were planning to undertake home-visits after their institutionalization, we conducted a study of a system that would promote home care using pharmacists handling various duties, including prescriptions and health consulting. Considering the pharmacists' years of experience and work shifts, efficiency/productivity, and the role of a family pharmacy, we developed a home medical care support system by allocating two pharmacists to each patient's home. Thus, we concluded that if the entire pharmacy would be involved in home-visiting services along with outpatient prescription dispensing services as part of continuous follow-up of patients from hospital visits to home care, the pharmacy would eventually serve as a family pharmacy in the community.

[Significance of Allowing Pharmacy Students to Attend Visits to Home Care Patients].

In 2006, with the admission of a new batch of students, pharmaceutical education became a 6-year course. This was a result of the urgent need to train a new generation of pharmacists to respond to increasingly advanced and intricate medical care as well as the specific need to coordinate with multiple occupational categories. Meanwhile, with Japan becoming an aged society, medical care has undergone functional differentiation, and home care is now being promoted. As part of an 11- week practical course for 5th-year practical training, students attended visits to home care patients from an early stage, making it possible for them to be present at multiple visits. This was highly significant because it allowed students to experience various disease states of different patients and increase their practical knowledge of pharmaceuticals. This study explores the case example of proposals made by pharmacy students for improving medication-related problems in home care patients during 5th-year practical training.