Japan Association for Medical Informatics

[4-D-3-03] Information Sharing between Healthcare Organizations and Pharmacies: Current Status and Prospects for Tracing Reports

*Atsushi TAKADA1 (1. Kyushu Univ. Hosp. Medical Information Center)

Drug Summary, Drug Information, Pharmacy, Medical Record Linkage, Quality of Health Care

In carrying out the duties of a pharmacist, the importance of medical information systems has been increasing, especially with the growing expectations of the role of pharmacies in recent community healthcare. This can be attributed to the deepening recognition that accurate and prompt information sharing is essential to ensure the safe care of patients.

To maintain uniformity in drug therapy in both the community and hospitals, the "tracing report" is gaining attention as a method for community pharmacists to communicate their observations to hospital medical staff. The tracing report is used as a means for pharmacists to report items they have noticed to medical institutions. It differs from the "inquiry of doubt" stipulated in Article 24 of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law, with its primary purpose being the sharing of non-urgent information.

However, there are challenges in the current acceptance and delivery of tracing reports, which can be categorized into challenges related to protocol, challenges on the sender's side, and challenges on the recipient's side.

One approach to address these challenges is digitization. With proper standardization and digitization, it will be possible to process the sender's information without any excess or deficiency on the recipient's side, and it is believed that issues such as efficiency, immediacy, and variations in report quality will move towards resolution. On the other hand, to ensure the authenticity of information, the use of existing infrastructure such as online qualification verification networks and HPKI for personal authentication is also being considered.